t- 



A BRIEF c/2^ 'z«^/z?zJt~ 

HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 



A COURSE OF SIX SERMONS, 



PREACHED DURING LENT, 1833. 



BY 

JOHN HAMBLETON, M. A. 

Of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, 

MINISTER OF THE CHAPEL OF EASE, ISLINGTON. 



SECOND EDITION. 



Hontron: 

HAT CHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; SEELEY AND 
SONS, FLEET- STREET ; 

FORD ; STARLING ; AND HUGHES ; ISLINGTON. 
1833. 







WILLIAM TYLER, 

PRINTER, 

4. ivy lane, st. Paul's. 



tf 



PREFACE. 



These Sermons formed, as trie title-page 
states, a Lent Course of Lectures, and were 
consequently restricted as to number. After 
preaching them, the Author had laid them 
1 % with no intention of sending them to 
le press. In consequence, however, of 
urgent applications from those, for whose 
motives he entertains a sincere respect, he 
has been induced to re-consider the series, 
in order to discover why his friends solicited 
their publication. He could honestly say 
much, respecting his own sense of the de- 
ficiencies of the work, both as to its plan 
and execution. He could also say some- 
thing, which might plead in extenuation of 
its failings. But now that he has consented 
to send it forth, such language might savour 
of feigned humility. If, then, this little book, 
such as it is, be only found to accord with 



PREFACE. 



the spirit of the Gospel of Christ, and to 
have been written with a single eye to his 
glory ; may He but deign to honour it with 
his approving smile, and make it the instru- 
ment of encouraging or converting but one 
soul ; and the author is more than con- 
tent, he is truly thankful. 

There is, however, one form in which 
the author did desire that these and all his 
sermons might re-appear, in a clear type, 
easy to be " known and read of all men ;" 
namely, in the Christian lives and tempers 
of all to whom he ministers. He therefore 
entreats his readers to join him in the 
prayer, that he and they may increasingly 
become the living " epistles of Christ, writ- 
ten not with ink, but with the Spirit of the 
living God." 1 

1 2 Cor. iii. 3. 



Islington, 
September 5, 1833. 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 

THE SOUL IN DANGER. 

EZEKIEL XVIII. 20. 

Pa^e 

The soul that sinneth, it shall die 1 



SERMON II. 

THE SOUL REPENTING. 

JOB XLII 5, 6. 

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear : 
but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I 
abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes 34 



VI 



SERMON III. 

THE SOUL BELIEVING. 

ROMANS X. 10. 

Page 

With the heart man believeth unto righteousness . 63 



SERMON IV. 

THE SOUL IN CONFLICT. 

ROMANS VII. 22—25. 

For I delight in the law of God after the inward 
man : But I see another law in my members, 
warring against the law of my mind, and bring- 
ing me into captivity to the law of sin which is 
in my members. wretched man that I am ! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord . 96 



SERMON V. 

THE SOUL DEVOTED. 
PHILIPPIANS IV. 13. 



Page 



1 can do all things through Christ which strength- 
ened me 128 



SERMON VI. 

THE SOUL DEPARTING. 

ACTS VII. 59, 60. 

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and 
saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he 
kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, 
lay not this sin to their charge. And when he 
had said this, he fell asleep 161 



SERMON I. 



THE SOUL IN DANGER. 



EZEKIEL XVIII. 20. 

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. 

The soul is the nobler part of man. Its 
spiritual nature connects him with angels 
and with God. Its capacities, whether of 
improvement and of happiness on the one 
hand, or of debasement and of misery on 
the other, far exceed those of any other 
creature upon earth. The soul also is to 
exist for ever. If the soul be saved, the 
body will be glorified, and the whole man 
will be made unutterably happy for eternity ! 
How solemn, how responsible a charge, to 
possess such a soul ! 



2 THE SOUL 

Yet that charge is yours and mine. Does 
the thought never thrill across your bosom, 
What is to become of my soul ? in what 
state did I receive it ? what has been its past 
history ? through what vicissitudes must it 
yet pass, if, which may God grant, it be at 
length found safe for eternity among the 
spirits of the just made perfect ? My friends, 
it is my earnest desire to assist you in those 
inquiries. Hence, during this present sea- 
son of Lent, I propose that we attempt to 
sketch together the History of a Saved Soul. 
I would describe certain points of experi- 
ence, with which every soul, eventually to 
be saved, must, I believe, become familiarly 
acquainted. 

You see then our subject. It is however 
obviously impossible, in a course of six 
sermons, to give the full history of any 
soul. I can but present certain leading out- 
lines, which Scripture and experience will 
enable you to fill up. And in this I shall 
endeavour to avoid all matters of doubtful 
speculation and mere contingency, and 
would confine myself to things which must 



IN DANGER. 6 

be understood by every soul that would be 
saved. 

We are to endeavour then to trace a soul 
from its state of danger to its admission into 
heavenly glory. Those are the two extreme 
points, the starting-place and the goal, of 
the course before us. The soul in danger 
will accordingly be the subject of this our 
first lecture. The next point will introduce 
to us the soul repenting. Another step, and 
we come to the soul believing. At the suc- 
ceeding stage, we shall witness the soul in 
conflict. We shall then rejoice to consider 
the soul denoted. And, lastly, our course 
will end, where the eventful history ends as 
to this world, for we shall trace the soul 
departing home to God. 

Such, if God permit, is to be the course 
and order of our six lectures. Not that 
these points are all to be experimentally 
understood by every individual in the pre- 
cise order now laid down. On the contrary, 
repentance, faith, conflict, will often be the 
mingled exercises of a single day. But it 
is meant that the points to be considered 



THE SOUL 



are all of primary importance, all necessary 
to be experimentally understood. Let me 
claim then your best attention and your 
most earnest prayers. Dismiss all curious 
and censorious thoughts. Listen, for your 
soul is concerned. Listen, as to what ought 
to be, and pray God that it may be, the 
history and experience of your own soul. 
Try, with God's help, to follow me, step by 
step, and stage by stage, that your soul 
may at last be the soul in glory. May no- 
thing short of that happy consummation 
satisfy you for yourselves, or me for myself 
or you ! When a soul is lost, we may 
acquiesce in the righteous dealings of God : 
but, if you would be our joy and rejoicing, 
or yourselves know full satisfaction, let 
Messiah see in you of the travail of his soul 
and be satisfied ! 

The soul in danger : — this, then, is our 
present subject : the true state of every soul 
by nature and by practice. 

Every soul is even by nature in a state of 
danger. This is plainly declared in Scrip- 
ture : " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, 



IN DANGER. 5 

and in" sin did my mother conceive me." 1 
"And we were by nature the children of 
wrath, even as others." Our church also 
in her Catechism teaches us to think of our- 
selves as " being by nature born in sin, and 
the children of wrath." Her ninth Article 
also testifies, that " original sin is the fault 
and corruption of every man, that naturally 
is engendered of the offspring of Adam ; 
whereby man is very far gone from original 
righteousness, and is of his own nature 
inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth 
always contrary to the spirit, and therefore 
in every person born into this world, it 
deserveth God's wrath and damnation." 
Thus Scripture and our church unite in pro- 
nouncing the soul's natural state a condition 
full of danger. 

The soul is the spiritual part of man, 
that which thinks, judges, wills ; that which 
influences and rules the body, whether for 
good or evil ; that which distinguishes man 
from the brutes, makes him a moral and 
accountable agent, and connects him with 

l Psalm li. 5. 2 Eph. ii. £. 

B 3 



6 THE SOUL 

the world of spirits, and the God of the 
spirits of all flesh. Such is the soul of man. 
In its origin, it came immediately from God. 
The first man could no more have created 
his own soul, than he could have made the 
world. We are expressly told, that " God 
created man in his own image." l " The Lord 
God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life ; and man became a living soul." 2 

All other souls also are the creation and 
gift of God : — not that he is the author of 
their corruption ; God forbid ! but to him 
they owe their existence, faculties, capaci- 
ties, without their sinfulness ; all, in short, 
that they might have been but for sin, all 
that they are, distinct from sin and its con- 
sequences, all that through grace they may 
yet become. This consideration is very im- 
portant. He who made the soul has a right 
to its service. God has an older and a bet- 
ter claim upon every soul than any other 
lord can have. " It is he that hath made 
us, and not we ourselves." 3 

iGen.i. 27. 2Gen.ii.7. 3p sa lmc. 3. 



IN DANGER. / 

Observe, also, that as God made the soul, 
its duty and happiness were inseparably 
connected with obedience to the divine will. 
God knew that sin would make man both 
miserable and guilty, and therefore he 
kindly forbade it. He knew that to love 
holiness and God, would make man happy, 
and therefore he commanded it. And thus 
his own glory, and man's obedience and 
welfare, were all closely interwoven. You 
see God's rightful claims on the soul of 
man. 

" But my soul," you may think, u as I 
received it, was not in that pure and holy 
state." It is true ; but the fault is not with 
God. I know that some dare to think it, 
but God cannot act contrary to his own 
nature, or become the author of sin. The 
young man often talks, as though there 
were no harm in indulging the passions 
which God has given him. But God gave 
not his passions that corrupt propensity. 
" God made man upright, but they have 

[sought out many inventions." * The soul 
l Eccles. vii. 29. 



8 THE SOUL 

which God created as the pattern and type 
of all human souls, was upright, pure, and 
holy. With that soul, he made a covenant 
of life and death ; of life for obedience, of 
death for transgression. And that covenant 
included Adam, together with Eve, and all 
naturally descended from them to the end 
of time. If he stood, they would stand ; 
if he fell, they would fall with him. How 
fearful then was his responsibility ! what a 
motive for obedience in that responsibility ! 
For Adam to sin was not only for him to 
act ungratefully to God, and against his 
own duty, interest, and happiness ; it was 
to involve his latest posterity in guilt and 
shame, in sorrow, misery, and death. 

But Adam fell. You have the sad history 
in Genesis iii. Consequently, his fall was 
ours, it was the fall of the human race, it 
for ever annulled to man the covenant of 
life by works. " By one man sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin ; and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned." 1 "Through the offence of one 

l Rom. v. 12. 



IN DANGER. 9 

many are dead." * " The judgment was by 
one to condemnation." 2 "By one man's 
offence death reigned by one/' 3 "By the 
offence of one judgment came upon all men 
to condemnation." 4 "By one man's dis- 
obedience many were made sinners." 5 " In 
Adam all die." 6 My friends, vain are all 
our cavils, the fact of our being involved in 
Adam's guilt is plainly stated in those scrip- 
tures. No other doctrine will explain the 
suffering, the misery, the death, which fill 
the world. Even in common life, we con- 
tinually see a similar principle established. 
Children are every day involved in the 
moral consequences of their parent's con- 
duct. How often do states make covenants, 
which bind the next generation ! How 
often do fathers sign deeds, which will 
affect their children's children ! How 
many an ungodly man, who would scoff at 
the doctrine of original sin, yet acts on the 
same principle, and does all he can, by 

1 Rom. v. 15 2 Rom. v. 16. 3 Rom. v. 17. 

4 Rom. v. 18. 5 Rom. v. 19. 

6 1 Cor. xv. 22, 



10 THE SOUL 

intemperance, extravagance, and folly, to 
ruin his children in body and in soul ! 

Thus is the soul in danger even from 
man's birth, by being involved in the guilt 
of Adam's fall. Nor is this all. The com- 
mission of sin wrought a moral change in 
the character and temper of Adam's soul. 
It introduced pride, lust, perverseness, sen- 
suality, rebellion, where before all was 
humility, purity, docility, spirituality, and 
obedience. The Holy Spirit withdrew his 
sanctifying presence from such an abode as 
the heart of man was now become. Man, 
thus left to himself, proceeded to add sin 
to sin, and to stray farther and farther from 
God. Was Adam satisfied with committing 
but one sin ? Do his children, with the his- 
tory of his sin before them, naturally 
show no inclination to follow his example ? 
Rather, is not sin the in-born temper of 
man, his native element, his favourite pur- 
suit? 

The simple truth is, by sin the moral 
character of Adam's soul was completely 
changed. All we are descended from him 



IN DANGER. 11 

in his fallen state, and inherit his disposi- 
tion. "Adam begat a son/' we are told, 
" in his own likeness, after his image." 1 
How different Ms image, then, from the 
image of God in which he himself was ori- 
ginally created ! And thus sharing his guilt, 
inheriting his disposition, and out of cove- 
nant with God, our souls have by nature 
no holy influence within, no good spirit 
from above presides, no heavenly principles 
bear sway ; the very thoughts and desires 
are corrupt, the judgment is perverse, the 
affections are sensual, the imaginations of 
the heart are only evil continually. 2 Our 
souls now are but the wreck of a noble 
vessel, the ruins of a beauteous temple. 
Who shall rebuild this house ? Who shall 
of these stones raise up children to Abra- 
ham ? " How is the gold become dim ! 
how is the most fine gold changed \" 3 

We see, then, that k every human soul, 
—Jesus Christ's alone excepted, for he was 
conceived by the supernatural operation of 
the Holy Ghost, — but that every other soul 

1 Gen. v. iii. 2 Gen. vi. 5 : viii. 21. 3 Lam. iv. 1. 



12 THE SOUL 

of man is, from the birth, not only involved 
in the guilt of Adam's transgression, but 
also in a corrupt state, prone to sin, in- 
clined to go astray from holiness and God. 
Do any doubt or dispute ? Let them go 
and learn of the little child. Give him the 
best of examples, the best of nurses, and 
the best of teachers : let a pious mother 
train him for God with all the mild arts of 
affectionate persuasion : let a pious father 
co-operate with her, and bring manly wis- 
dom, firmness, and discretion, tempered 
with love, and sanctioned by authority, to 
unite in the good effort ; and although such 
training, accompanied with prayer, would, 
doubtless, be wonderfully blessed, yet would 
the child never go wrong ? Would no bad 
temper show itself ? Yet, whence or how, 
if he be not naturally prone to sin ? Or 
take an opposite case. Leave a child to him- 
self with no religious culture : — will he go 
right ? among the thousand paths which he 
may take, will he ever, of himself, stumble 
on the straight and narrow way of holiness % 
Then, I infer, holiness is not man's natural 



IN DANGER. 13 

delight. " As soon as they are born, men 
go astray." l 

You grant then the fact, that man natu- 
rally has corrupt inclinations. Then this 
fact proves, confirms, and increases the 
soul's danger. For corrupt propensities in 
man must be known to God, who sees every 
thing that is in the human heart ; and, being 
known, they must be evil in his sight. Why, 
if you saw in another a rooted enmity, a 
bitter malice, a murderous animosity against 
yourself, you could not be pleased with 
that discovered feeling. You might pity 
the man ; if yourself a Christian, you 
might go and pray for him, and then come 
back and try and soften him by kindness. 
But the feeling itself must be offensive. 
So, when God saw in your soul seeds of sin, 
a root of bitterness against himself, a deter- 
mined animosity against his holy character, 
it must have been hateful in his sight. He 
might pity you ; he might try and soften 
you ; but in that state of mind, I mean 
your natural state, your soul must have 

1 Psalm lviii. 3. 



14 THE SOUL 

been an object of just abhorrence to Him, 
who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, 
and cannot look on iniquity. 1 And will 
God have such souls as his companions, the 
objects of his complacency, in heaven ? 
Would a king take a rebel in his rebellious- 
ness to dwell with him in his palace ? 
Would you select that bitter enemy, with 
his enmity unchanged, to be your bosom 
friend ? Surely we already see the neces- 
sity of having guilt removed, and a new 
moral character given to the soul, before 
man can be at peace with God. Already 
we may cry out for the Gospel of good 
tidings to fallen man. Would that as we 
first sinned by one common representative, 
we might find another representative, in 
whose righteousness we might be made righ- 
teous ! How evident the necessity, that 
since we were all born in sin, " Except a 
man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God!" 2 

How affecting, my brethren, is the sum 
of what has been said ! How humbling to 

1 Hab. i. 13. 2 John in. 3. 



IN DANGER. 15 

reflect, that each of our souls was, by 
nature, fallen, sinful, dead, even before the 
commission of personal transgression. It 
was fallen from God's favour, out of cove- 
nant with him, very far gone from righte- 
ousness, destitute of the Holy Spirit's grace. 
It was sinful, being involved in Adam's sin, 
and having sinful propensities of its own. 
It was dead, — under a sentence of death, 
and under the power of death. Your body 
and soul, even in infancy, contained within 
themselves the principle of dissolution from 
each other : this is natural death ; hence, 
even infants die. Your soul was already sepa- 
rate from God ; this is spiritual death. And 
unless God deliver you in some gracious 
way, you could never, of yourself, return 
to God ; you and he must be separate for 
ever : and what is that but eternal death ? 
" The soul that sinneth, it shall die !" 

And here I could gladly pause, to preach 
to you the glad tidings of salvation through 
Christ. Who of you does not already wish 
to escape from that state of danger, and to 
flee from the wrath to come ? But our 






16 THE SOUL 

subject is yet only half considered. We 
have seen the soul in danger by nature : we 
have yet to see it so also by practice. Come 
with me to this our Second point. The view, 
I am aware, is deeply humbling. But we 
shall come to fairer scenes and brighter pros- 
pects in due time. Would we ascend the 
lofty mountain, whence we may gaze with 
rapture on heaven in its glory and earth in 
its beauty, while, ever and anon, clouds roll, 
lightnings play, and thunders roar harmless 
beneath our feet, we must be content to 
descend, first, into the gloomy valley, and 
climb by that narrow path. No one, I 
believe, ever goes on solidly and safely in 
religion, who has not, through God's grace, 
a deep foundation-work laid in his soul, irv 
a thorough heartfelt conviction of his fal- 
len and guilty state both by nature and 
practice. 

To this latter point we now turn. You 
have heard what Adam did with his soul, 
and for the souls of his posterity, in the 
responsible situation in which he stood. 
The question now arises, what have you 



IN DANGER. 17 

been doing for yourself with your own soul ? 
You received it, I admitted, in a fallen 
state. But what efforts did you make to 
escape from that state ? Even in early 
infancy, Christ encouraged your being 
brought to him. Even in infancy, prayers 
were offered for you by his church, that 
your soul might be regenerated by his Spirit, 
be washed in his blood, and receive the ful- 
ness of his Father's grace. 1 At the same 
time solemn promises were made for you, 
that you should repent, believe, obey, 
God's grace helping you. For that grace 
you were to pray. Parents, sponsors, friends, 
and ministers, were all to labour and pray 
for your Christian instruction. Whether 
they did their duty, is a solemn question 
for them. But your concern is with your 
own duty. You might have early sought 
life and grace for your poor soul. Our God 
will listen as kindly to the lisping child, as 
to the grey-headed old man, crying to him 
in the name of Christ. " Out of the mouth 
of babes and sucklings he can perfect 

l See the Baptismal Service. 
c3 






18 " THE SOUL 

praise." l But was it so with you ? How 
very few resemble the Baptist, who was 
sanctified from his birth ! How few, like 
Timothy, have from their childhood known 
the Holy Scriptures ! Even at that tender 
age, there was, with most of us, a wilful 
neglect of God, a perverseness of temper, 
a disobedience to parents, a love of false- 
hood, a selfishness of spirit. In all that 
there were the beginnings of actual sin. 

Youth came ; and with it came the 
growth of reason, the expansion of affec- 
tion, the increase of opportunities, the 
training of the mind, the formation of cha- 
racter. But, with many of us, how sad to 
reflect, that at that season also, God had no 
place in our hearts ! We began to under- 
stand other things, but not the things of 
God, We could love a parent, a brother, 
a friend, but not God. We grew in human 
wisdom, we cared nothing for the wisdom 
that coineth from above. We were trained 
for business, for society, for science, but 
not for heaven. Other principles were im- 

1 Psalm "viii. 2. 



IN DANGER. 19 

planted and cultivated, but those which 
God offers in his word, as principles which 
would make us blessed in ourselves and a 
true blessing to others, and which would 
pass with us into eternity, were all utterly 
despised. And then, in how many cases, 
how various, how corrupt, how daring 
were the sins of youth ! Are not public 
schools too commonly notorious for vice ? 
Are not private schools often .almost as bad ? 
Who, that has passed through either, does 
not remember how prayer was ridiculed, 
God's name insulted, the Sabbath profaned ? 
Who has not there seen and heard other 
things, calculated to pollute the heart? 
And was there no sin in such things ? Read, 
young people, how David, Job, and Jere- 
miah speak of youthful sins. " Remember 
not the sins of my youth, nor my trans- 
gressions." 1 " Thou writest bitter things 
against me, and makest me to possess the 
iniquities of my youth." 2 " I was ashamed, 
yea, even confounded, because I did bear 
the reproach of my youth." 3 Oh think, 

1 Psalm xxv. 7. 2 J b xiii. 26. 3 Jer. xxxi. 19. 






20 THE SOUL 

I intreat you, with shame and sorrow, of 
many actual sins committed in your youth ! 
Are riper years come ? And yet how 
often have some still thought and acted, as 
though there were no God. How many 
have cause to confess with the poet Cow- 
per, who thus wrote to a friend, "You 
think I always believed, and I thought so 
too ; but you were deceived, and so was I. 
I called myself indeed a Christian, but He 
who knows my heart knows that I never 
did a right thing, nor abstained from a 
wrong one, because I was so. But if I did 
either, it was under the influence of some 
other motive." * How important that obser- 
vation ! How true in our own case ! What 
we did that seemed right, was not done 
from love to God, and to please him. The 
bad things, from which we abstained, were 
not shunned because he forbade them. But 
some worldly motive, a regard to worldly 
interest, a dread of worldly consequences, 
this was our principle. Then, that principle, 
in God's sight, was defective : it was not the 

1 See Cowper's Letters. 



IN DANGER. 21 

motive proposed by him : it usurped the 
place of better motives : it could not please 
him. Then, neither could the actions 
which flowed from that principle. And 
thus our best actions were utterly defective ; 
our most splendid virtues were nothing but 
splendid sins ! "All our righteousnesses are 
as filthy rags." 1 

And if so with our best deeds, what is to 
be thought of our worst ? Did you ever 
try to make a catalogue of your sins ? God 
has one in the book of his remembrance. 
Can you venture to attempt to form one for 
yourself? Make the trial, I intreat you, 
although it may bring sorrow into the heart, 
and tears into the eyes. Take in private a 
blank paper. Write at the top of it the 
law of God : " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God, with all thy heart, mind, soul, 
and strength, and thy neighbour as thy- 
self." Or, draw out the Saviour's example 
under distinct heads. Or, add the ten com- 
mandments, and subdivide them into your 
duty toward God, and your duty toward your 

1 Isaiah lxiv. C .- 



22 THE SOUL 

neighbour. Then, under each command- 
ment draw two lines, one for things you 
have done, which, according to that law, 
you ought not to have done ; the other, for 
things you have left undone, which, accord- 
ing to that law, you ought to have done. 

Then, with prayer to God for his Holy 
Spirit, that you may not wish to omit any 
sin, begin to put down a memorandum of 
your sins, of word, thought, and deed 
against that law. 

Would you omit the bad thought ? I 
dare not advise it. God does not. " The 
thought of foolishness is sin." l God's law 
Is spiritual, 2 reaching to the spirit. The 
tenth commandment, which forbids to covet, 
gives a spiritual character to all the preced- 
ing commandments. Our Lord also, in his 
Sermon on the Mount, plainly declares, that 
an angry thought breaks the sixth com- 
mandment, and an impure desire breaks the 
seventh. And no wonder, for thoughts are 
the seeds of actions, and if the action is 
sinful, its root and principle must be sinful 

1 Prov. xxiv. 9. 2 Rom. vii. 14. 



IN DANGER. 23 

also. Bad thoughts, then, together with 
idle words, foolish speeches, corrupt com- 
munications, and all sinful actions, must be 
faithfully put down in your catalogue of 
sins. 

Though I advise this attempt, it is not 
because I think you can complete it. You 
will soon find the memory lost and over- 
whelmed in the effort. You will find more 
sins to be recorded, than you once thought 
could have been crowded into so short a 
space of time. You will sigh over the sad 
picture of yourself. You will be obliged 
to give up the attempt, and to write at the 
foot of the list: "My iniquities have taken 
hold upon me, so that I am not able to 
look up ; they are more than the hairs of 
my head : therefore my heart faileth me." l 
I would advise you to try, though it be with 
tremulous hand, to close the catalogue, 
with signing your name, as a solemn con- 
fession of its truth. Then, in a distinct 
line, add my text, " The soul that sinneth, 
it shall die'' And leave a space for yet 

l Psalm xl. 12. 






24 THE SOUL 

another sentence, which you perhaps can 
guess already, and, if not, I will tell it you 
hereafter. 

What a picture^ is that before us of the 
state of danger, in which your soul has 
been, both by nature and practice ! It 
seemed as bad as it could be by nature, it 
appears yet worse by practice. For if 
Adam's one sin incurred death, what is to 
be thought of the guilt of your innumera- 
ble sins ? Surely, without the least exag- 
geration or over-statement, your guilt was 
infinite, for your sins were committed against 
Him who is infinite in goodness, and their 
number is beyond enumeration. What a 
state then was yours ! Your soul was, from 
the first, dead in trespasses and sins, under 
guilt, and with unholy propensities : and 
then, every period of your life has added 
sins of omission and of commission, without 
number, against every commandment of the 
law ; and every sin has deserved death ! 

We shall come in due time, as I pro- 
mised, to brighter scenes. In the new state, 
which I shall have to describe, there is 



IN DANGER. 25 

change, motion, feeling, life. There will 
be a pleasing and delightful prospect. We 
shall behold mountains and valleys, rills of 
comfort, rivers of joy, trees of righteous- 
ness laden with golden fruits, fountains 
sparkling with living water, pastures ever 
verdant, and, above all, the Sun of Righ- 
teousness shining down health, warmth, 
and animation over the whole scene. But 
in your old, unconverted state, all was one 
dull course of cheerless uniformity ; dark- 
ness brooded over the whole scene, it was 
the very region of the shadow of death. 
As you advanced in years, all became more 
and more gloomy : — the night thickened 
its horrors : — your treacherous guide led 
you on at a quicker step : — before you 
was a tremendous pit, which, ever and 
anon, sent up a lurid glare and a dismal 
shriek, though, it may be, you saw and 
heard it not. 

Let me hope that you now see the fitness 
of the title of this discourse, The soul in 
danger. If you still doubt it, my appeal is 
to your Bible and your conscience. Even 



26 THE SOUL 

if you have still doubts about my first part, 
and think that you have nothing to do with 
Adam's sin, can you escape from my second 
part ? Can you satisfy God and your con- 
science, that you have never personally 
sinned ? Then, yours undoubtedly has been 
the soul in danger. But I rather hope that 
you admit both parts, and that your anxi- 
ous thought now is, How can I escape from 
that state of danger ? 

How indeed ! Perhaps you will think 
with some, " God is too merciful to punish 
with eternal death." Be not deceived. 
God is as just, holy, and true, as he is 
merciful. " God is not a man, that he should 
lie ; neither the son of man, that he should 
repent : hath he said, and shall he not do 
it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not 
make it good ?" 1 Was God too merciful to 
drown the old world? or to burn Sodom 
and Gomorrah ? or to destroy Tyre, Baby- 
lon, Nineveh, and even his beloved city 
Jerusalem ? Are not the Jews, scattered 
and peeled as they are, living monuments 

1 Numb, xxiii. 19. 



IN DANGER. 27 

in all nations, that God is just and righte- 
ous in fulfilling his threatenings on the dis- 
obedient? Is he too merciful to allow 
temporal death to continue its ravages 
among men ? Is not generation after gene- 
ration regularly swept off, according to the 
sentence passed six thousand years ago, 
" Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 
return ?" l Then, who art thou, who, hav- 
ing dared to sin against God times without 
number, now expectest the law of his king- 
dom to be set aside, to the dishonour of 
his name, authority, and word, under the 
plea that he is too merciful to punish? 
True, he is merciful ! But such mercy as 
many hope for, would be but another name 
for weakness. What think you of a king 
too good-natured ever to punish an offen- 
der? Would he not be a royal promoter 
of offences, a patron of thieves and mur- 
derers ? Oh, rest not on that idle plea of 
a weak mercy in God, too soft to punish. 
It will not serve. 

Then, what will you do ? "I will make 

1 Gen. Ui. 19. 






28 THE SOUL 

up for my offences: I will reform myself: 
so will I blot out my sins." Poor soul, thou 
art talking of impossibilities. There is not 
one of those things which thou canst do. 
Go, move a mountain, fill up the ocean, 
pull down the stars from their spheres : — 
all will be as easy as what thou proposest 
for thyself. Thou canst not make up for 
thy offences. Thou canst not form thyself 
anew. Neither thy tears nor thy blood 
could blot out thy sins. Even if thou never 
sinnest again, in word, thought, or deed, 
it is thy duty that thou doest, and no more. 
It cannot make up for thy past sins. To 
pay the debt of to-day, does not pay the 
debt contracted yesterday. Would your 
debtor satisfy you, if he came and said, 
" I am sorry that I contracted that debt, I 
will add to it no more ?" And is not the jus- 
tice of God as high and sacred a thing, as 
equity between man and man ? 

Have you yet other pleas ? Let me per- 
suade you to drop all, and look to the one 
only plea proposed by God himself. For 



IN DANGER. 29 

while you are looking to vain confidences, 
your soul's danger continues unabated, yea, 
it increases every moment. Every breath 
you draw brings temporal death nearer. 
And as death finds, so will judgment and 
eternity. 

Brethren, I have hesitated whether I 
ought not to leave the matter there. Hav- 
ing shown yours to be the soul which has 
been, or now is, the soul in danger, I have 
doubted whether I ought, in this sermon, to 
show you the way of escape. But I can- 
not, I must not omit it. It is true, we shall 
come in the next lecture to consider the 
soul repenting, and then the soul believing ; 
but you need not be bound by the order of 
this course of sermons. You cannot safely 
delay the matter a $£ngle week. I must 
not be fettered with the law of critics, who 
would tell me that the gospel is not in my 
text. Then it ought to be in the sermon. 
If not in my text, it is in my Bible, and it 
ought to be sounded in your ears, and 
received into your hearts. That gospel you 
d3 



30 THE SOUL 

shall find more at large in the subsequent 
lectures. But at present I declare thus 
much. My text says, " The soul that sin- 
neth it shall die" Jesus Christ said, "Who- 
soever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die." ! He was the eternal Son of 
God, and yet from pity to lost sinners,, 
he took on him a human soul and body. 
He kept that soul, as he received it, with- 
out spot or taint of sin, original or actual. 
He preserved that body a holy temple, ever 
undefiled. He was pure in heart, holy in 
life, a lamb without blemish and without 
spot. And yet he was crucified : on the 
ignominious cross he endured agony of 
body and of mind, and made his soul an 
offering for sin. 2 His divine origin gave 
a divine and infinite worth to such a life 
crowned with such a death. All was " for 
us men and for our salvation." 3 And now, 
for his sake, through faith in his name, 
without works, yea, notwithstanding all 
your evil works, your soul may be freely 
forgiven, graciously accepted, fully justified 

1 John xi. 26. 2 Isaiah liii. 10. 3 Nicene Creed. 



IN DANGER. 31 

before God. And thus yours may cease to 
be the soul in danger. 

But there must be that faith, in simple, 
lively exercise. It is not the Christian 
name, baptism, or profession ; it is not a 
notion of doctrine or a lip-service ; it is only 
Jesus Christ, believed on with the heart, 
that can save your soul from that tremen- 
dous danger. To neglect Christ will be to 
neglect salvation. To refuse to believe in 
Christ will be to add to all your other sins 
the terrible sin of rejecting God's only 
method for saving thee ; it is to dash away 
the cup, which contains the only balm that 
can heal the soul. Have ye not read, " He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved; but he that believeth not shall be 

damned?" 1 

And do you find believing in Christ diffi- 
cult ? Ask God, and he will make it easy. 
Is the heart too hard and stubborn to yield ? 
Put it into God's hand, and entreat him to 
make it soft and pliant. But do not trifle 
with this solemn subject. Do not sport on 

l Mark xvi. 16. 



32 THE SOUL 

the margin of a precipice, at the foot of 
which a lake of fire rolls waves of fury. 
Think not the preacher severe, who has 
faithfully pointed out your danger. He 
would be well content to bear your momen- 
tary displeasure, if he may but be an in- 
strument to save your soul. Oh, let not 
the impression of this sermon die from 
your memory, before you have gone hum- 
bly on your knees before God, and con- 
fessed the sin and guilt with which your 
conscience now stands charged. Then hum- 
bly seek reconciliation with God, through 
the atoning blood and righteousness of his 
Son, Jesus Christ. Have you so gone long 
ago ? Then go again ; renew your humi- 
liation, again express faith, realize new joy 
and peace in believing. 

Does one still cavil and object ? Let 
others exhort and pray for that soul in dan- 
ger. Does that soul still linger ? Oh, be 
as the good angels to Lot, to lay hold upon 
his hand, and hasten him out of Sodom. 
Flee, sinner, for thy life ! Holy Spirit, 
convince that soul of sin ! Redeemer of 



IN DANGER. 33 

the world, have mercy upon that misera- 
ble sinner! Father of mercies, have pity 
upon every one of us, thy once prodigal 
and rebellious children ! Save thou the 
soul in danger ! 



SERMON II. 

THE SOUL REPENTING 



JOB XLII. 5, 6. 

/ have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear : but now 
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and 
repent in dust and ashes. 

Such was of old the language of a soul 
repenting. And this, you remember, was 
proposed as the second point of observa- 
tion in which we would contemplate the 
soul. In the Introductory Lecture I had 
to show the soul in danger, both by na- 
ture and practice. You have now had a 
brief interval for reflection, self-examina- 
tion, prayer, and the study of your Bible. 
Have you mastered the former subject, 
learned well the humbling lesson, become 



THE SOUL REPENTING. 35 

thoroughly convinced that yours has been 
the soul in danger ? 

Then, be not discouraged. To take one 
step well in religion paves the way for a 
second, and that for a third ; and every 
advancing step is a step farther from dan- 
ger, and nearer to heaven. Be not afraid 
of our present topic. Its title, The soul 
repenting, may wear a forbidding aspect ; 
but, enter cordially and experimentally into 
its meaning, and, I think, you will find that 
there is a sweetness in true repentance, a 
pleasure in godly sorrow, a far purer satis- 
faction in weeping for sin, than ever was 
found in committing it. 

But, in order to enter aright into such 
a subject, we must have the grace of God 
the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It was easy 
enough, without him, to have the soul in 
danger. It is impossible, without him, to 
have the soul repenting. Pray, then, for 
his grace. I pause, that every one may waft 
an ejaculation to the throne of grace, for 
the effectual blessing and inward presence 
of the Lord and Giver of spiritual life. 



36 THE SOUL 

In describing the soul repenting, I would 
follow the order suggested by our text. 
" I have heard of thee by the hearing of 
the ear : " — that describes many a soul which 
has not yet exercised a repenting spirit. 
" But now mine eye seeth thee : " — there is 
the humbling view which alone produces 
true repentance. " Wherefore I abhor my- 
self, and repent in dust and ashes : " — there 
is the soul in the full exercise of repent- 
ance, loathing itself with the deepest self- 
abasement. 

" I have heard of thee by the hearing of 
the ear : " — that describes many a soul while 
a stranger to true repentance. Job had 
heard of God long before. We know in- 
deed but little of his early history. The 
very time at which he lived is matter of 
uncertainty. There is every reason to 
think that he lived before Moses, in the 
patriarchal times. His own history and 
character furnish abundant proofs, that he 
must have heard much and often of God 
by the hearing of the ear. We find that 
he feared God, and eschewed evil ; that 



REPENTING. 37 

he offered burnt-offerings ; that he acknow- 
ledged God as the sovereign Lord, who 
gives and takes away at his pleasure. We 
find him knowing that his Redeemer liveth, 
and expressing a firm belief in his glorious 
advent, and in the resurrection of the body. 
We observe him tracing the dealings of 
Divine Providence, and attempting, though 
the subject was too wonderful for him, to 
fathom the counsels of the Most High. In 
order to all this, he must have heard much 
of God by the hearing of the ear. Possibly, 
from parents in early life he heard the 
sacred traditions respecting God, which were 
religiously handed down among the old 
fathers of mankind. Certainly, in confer- 
ence with friends, from Eliphaz the Teman- 
ite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the 
Naamathite, he had again heard much. 
Whatever were the means of hearing of 
God by the ear, as at that time possessed 
by the church of God, Job, there is reason 
to think, had enjoyed and used them all. 
And yet all this had been insufficient. 
Though eminent for patience, he had fallen 

£ 



38 THE SOUL 

into impatience. Though a believer in the 
Redeemer, he had given way to unbelief. 
Though one that feared God, and eschewed 
evil, yet, unable to bear up against strong 
temptation, he had cursed the day of his 
birth, complained of life, refused to confess 
sin, made a vain-glorious boast of his in- 
tegrity, and impeached the goodness and 
justice of God in allowing him to suffer. 
This was his state ; and then his soul, what- 
ever it had once been, was anew the soul 
in danger. 

Brethren, there is no encouragement for 
us to continue in sin, because of the falls 
of good men. If David falls, he must begin 
afresh, repent anew, cry, like a poor sinner 
who had never repented before, " Have 
mercy upon me, O God, according to thy 
lovingkindness ; according unto the mul- 
titude of thy tender mercies, blot out my 
transgressions." l " Create in me a clean 
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit 
within me." 2 If Peter falls, he is not to 
presume, " Oh, I have been a believer, I can- 

lPsa.lL!, 2p sa . H. 10. 



REPENTING. 39 

not finally fall away :" — he must go out and 
weep bitterly. If Job falls, his former hear- 
ing, profession, knowledge, are as nothing ; 
he must begin again, he must learn to 
abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes. 
1 urge this with earnestness. The doc- 
trines of grace, which are the very glory 
of the gospel, must not be perverted into 
encouragements to licentiousness. Mis- 
takes on this point are not uncommon. 
There are some who say to themselves, 
" Oh, I have heard of God, I know the 
plan of salvation, I have correct views of 
divine truth, I have heard the most eminent 
ministers : surely I am not a babe in Christ : 
no need for me to be laying again the foun- 
dation of repentance from dead works." 
But if your knowledge and hearing, with 
your profession and attainments, have not 
kept you from returning to sin, you have 
heed to repent, quite as much as, perhaps 
more than, that poor sinner, who, for the first 
time, is smiting upon his breast and crying, 
" God, be merciful to me a sinner !" l 

1 Luke xviii. 13. 



'40 THE SOUL 

To all who would repent aright, I must 
say, It is not enough to have heard of God 
by the hearing of the ear. It is good, I 
grant, to have heard of him at all. We 
know that " faith cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the Word of God." l We know 
that what the ear hears, may, through 
God's blessing, enlighten the mind, affect 
the conscience, penetrate the heart. Yet 
the mere hearing with the ear, in a vague, 
general way, is utterly insufficient. Yet 
how much is this the hearing given to the 
truth of God by many professed Christians ! 
How long it was the case with some of us ! 
You heard something of God in early life. 
Much as religious education was neglected 
in our youth, much as it is still neglected 
by many parents, you all, I suppose, heard 
something of God by education in child- 
hood. Yet how slight was the impression 
upon many of our minds ! What we heard 
with one ear escaped as at the other. Re- 
ligion was an irksome subject. The Bible 
was thought a task-book. Prayer was 

l Rom. x. 17. 



REPENTING. 41 

either hurried oveT as a form, or, through 
sloth, indifference, or false shame, frequently 
omitted. We went to church, but paid no 
attention : we trifled, we gazed, we slept, 
we roved in imagination to the ends of the 
earth. We never seriously attempted to 
reduce to practice one thing that we heard 
from the Word of God. It might not be so 
with all. I am sure it was so with many. 
Does not many a conscience whisper, It was 
so with me ! 

You heard also of God in other ways, 
in the days of your impenitence and igno- 
rance. I am not supposing you to have 
lived among heathens, although, even there, 
God has not left himself without witness. 1 
You lived among nominal Christians, you 
had access to Christian books, you had the 
outward means of grace ; in many ways, in 
public and in private, you may have heard 
much of God by the hearing of the ear. 
Grievously as God is forgotten in the world, 
much as many called Christians are ashamed 
of Jesus Christ, especially of his cross and 

l Acts xiv. 17. 
e 3 



42 THE SOUL 

of all the peculiar doctrines of his gospel, 
yet I am not obliged to suppose, that 
worldly-minded persons never hear any 
thing of God by the hearing of the ear. 
On the contrary, they may hear much. 
They may come to our churches, and hear 
lesson after lesson out of God's Word ; l 
they may hear ministers set forth the cha- 
racter of God as revealed in Scripture : 
they may go farther ; they may gain a cor- 
rect theoretic knowledge of the only plan 
of salvation, so as to be able to talk of it 
fluently, and to argue for it vehemently : 
— and yet, they may have never felt the 
power of the divine word, been humbled by 
it in heart, been brought to repent truly 
before God. Religion may be with them 
the business of the ear which hears, and of 
the tongue which talks, — not yet of the 

1 It is worthy of remark, how much of Scripture is circulated 
by our church every Sunday to the hearing of the ear, throughout 
our land, and in distant parts of the world. In the Morning 
Service alone, the introductory sentences, the Lord's Prayer, 
Psalm xcv., the two or three psalms of the day, the two Lessons, 
Psalm c, or the Benedictus, the Epistle and Gospel, the Ten 
Commandments, and the preacher's text, are all pure Scripture! 
How great the responsibility of those who hear ! 



REPENTING. 43 

heart which feels, and of the soul which 
falls prostrate in self-abasement before the 
God who gave it. 

My brethren, examine your own selves. 
Let each think, Has all my religion and my 
knowledge of God been but the hearing of 
the ear ? Have I, like the Samaritans, been 
worshipping I know not what ? like the 
Athenians, been building an altar to the 
unknown God? Have I talked of re- 
pentance, yet never repented ? of faith, 
yet never believed ? of good works, yet 
never performed one work from the only 
motives which God approves as good ? If 
so, surely something, yea, much more is 
still needful to my soul ! 

May God show us this, while we con- 
sider, Secondly, the view of God which 
produces true repentance. "But now mine 
eye seeth thee.' 9 Job cannot here mean 
that his bodily eye saw God. " No man 
hath seen God at any time." l He must 
then mean, that, with the eye of his sou], 
he had now gained such a view of God and 

1 John i. 18. 



44 THE SOUL 

his perfections, as had humbled his soul 
into genuine repentance. 

After Job had been hearing of God 
with the ear from his three friends, God 
himself, we are told, answered Job out 
of the whirlwind, and charged him with 
ignorance and imbecility. God tells him 
of the wonders of creation, and the mys- 
teries of providence, leaving him to infer 
his greater ignorance of the system of 
God's moral government, and the mys- 
teries of grace. God plainly charged him 
with pride of intellect, and with an attempt 
to intrude his petty reason into the peculiar 
province of the Deity. " Shall he that 
contendeth with the Almighty instruct him ? 
he that reproveth God, let him answer it." \ 
Job felt the Divine rebuke, and answered 
in that memorable confession, " Behold, I 
am vile !" 2 

Then, as if the humbling impression were 
not yet deep enough, God follows up his 
expostulation, and, with close appeals to 
Job's conscience, sets before him the Divine 

IJobxl. 2. 2j bxl. 4. 



REPENTING. 45 

righteousness, power, majesty, and wisdom. 
He charges him with inability to justify or 
save himself: which if he thinks that he 
can do, God bids him to undertake the 
moral government of the world. 1 He sends 
him at last to learn the power and wisdom 
of his Maker, from the hippopotamus and 
the crocodile. 2 But here, it seems, Job 
could contain himself no longer. Such a 
view of the Divine majesty and glory filled 
his mind, that he was ashamed of the bab- 
blings of his ignorance, and confounded at 
his presumption : he confesses the pride of 
his objections ; he acknowledges guilt ; he 
owns the omnipotence and omniscience of 
God. " I know that thou canst do every 
thing, and that no thought can be with- 
holden from thee. Who is he that hideth 
counsel without knowledge ? therefore have 
I uttered that I understood not ; things too 
wonderful for me, which I knew not." 3 
Then mark how he supplicates : " Hear, 
I beseech thee, and I will speak : I will 
demand of thee, and declare thou unto me." 

» Job xl. 6—14. 2 Job x i. 15, to end of xli. 3 J b xlii. 2, 3. 



46 THE SOUL 

And then follows the penitential confession 
of our text : " I have heard of thee by the 
hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seetl' 
thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repem 
in dust and ashes." 

It was thus, my brethren, that Job's sou 
was led to repent. And so only can your 
or mine be led. It is God speaking to u 
by his Word and Spirit ; it is God revealing 
himself in his glorious perfections ; it is, 
under our dispensation, the souPs view of 
God, as seen and known in Jesus Christ : — 
this is what produces true repentance. How 
striking our Lord's words," He that seeth me, 
seeth him that sent me." 1 And Oh, my Chris- 
tian hearers, if the view of God, as seen in 
creation, so humbled Job; if the view of God, 
as binding the sweet influences of Pleiades, 
loosing the bands of Orion, bringing forth 
Mazzaroth in his season, and guiding Arc- 
turus with his sons, so amazed Job ; if he 
learned the wisdom, goodness, and power of 
God, from the wild beast of the field and the 
fowl of the air : if the war-horse, pawing 

1 John xii. 45. 



REPENTING. 47 

the ground and smelling the battle afar off; 
if behemoth and leviathan served to teach 
him such humbling lessons ; — what say we 
to the view of God, presented to ourselves, 
amid the full blaze of the gospel dispen- 
sation ? 

Mark his omniscience. God knew the 
secrets of all hearts, the wants of every 
soul, the full requirements of the law, the 
utter insufficiency of man to save himself, 
when he gave Jesus Christ to be the Savi- 
our of as many as, through grace, will be 
saved through Him. Infinite wisdom is 
displayed in every provision of the gospel, 
which is evidently designed for a creature 
fallen, sinful, guilty, helpless, and lost. It 
provides fully for the glory of every attri- 
bute of God, and also for every want of the 
soul of man. 

Next mark the holiness of God as seen 
in Jesus Christ. It beams forth in many 
rays from that Sun of Righteousness. How 
infinitely holy was God, that no other way 
of access could be righteously opened for 
sinners to himself, but through his only- 



48 THE SOUL 

begotten and well-beloved Son becoming 
a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief; 
and, at length, as man, suffering, wounded, 
bruised, and even dying upon the cross for 
our transgressions and iniquities ! Surely, 
on that cross, the holiness of God is stamped 
in characters of blood. Often in spirit 
approach that cross, my fellow-sinners. 
When disposed to treat sin with levity, 
draw near by faith to that cross, reeking 
with sacred blood, and read there, and 
reflect, how evil a thing is sin ! how holy is 
God! 

You see again the holiness of God in the 
personal character of Jesus Christ. He is 
the model of human perfection. He knew 
no sin. He was pure in heart and life. It 
was his meat and drink to do his Father's 
will. He loved God with all his heart and 
soul, and his neighbour as himself. Attempts 
have, at various times, been made to fix on 
him some charge of sin; but all have failed, 
and have only served to manifest more 
clearly his sinless holiness. Although more 
than eighteen centuries have passed since 



REPENTING. 49 

his birth, and although his character has 
been sifted and scrutinized, as that of no 
other man ever was, by Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees, by philosophers and sages, by infi- 
dels and atheists, by sects and parties, by 
friends and foes, yet, unto this day, no 
charge of sin was ever yet proved against 
him. His character stands alone among men. 
There is none equal or second thereto. All 
other men must stand afar off, and gaze 
with admiration, yea, rather, they must 
abase themselves at the contrast, and cry, 
How glorious is God ! how vile is man ! 

And do you not see the holiness of God 
in this also, that while the gospel of Christ 
offers you a full and free pardon, and an 
entire justification, yet it tells every soul 
among you, This is not, that you may con- 
tinue in sin ? God forbid ! In order to this, 
you must be born again. You must have 
a new heart, a new spirit, a new life. " With- 
out holiness no man shall see the Lord." l 
But in acquiring this, God offers you through 
Christ the grace and strength of the Holy 

1 Heb. xii. 14. 
F 



50 THE SOUL 

Spirit,, to encourage, sustain, and effectually 
enable. 

Thus no man can gain a right view of 
God, as he proposes himself in the gospel, 
without having the thought continually 
pressed upon his soul, " God is infinitely 
holy, but I am altogether unholy." 

Further, the omnipotence of God, which 
Job was instructed to discover in natural 
creation, we may see yet more distinctly in 
the manifestations of the gospel. What but 
omnipotence can break the hard heart, and 
turn the lion into a lamb ? What but that 
can lead you, so weak a creature, through 
hosts of spiritual foes, conquering and to 
conquer ? What inferior power could have 
originally established the church of Christ 
amid such fierce opposition ? What else 
has preserved it till this day, so that the 
gates of hell have never yet prevailed against 
it ? In every accession to that church, by 
the true conversion to God of another sin- 
ner, there is a fresh manifestation of the 
almighty power of God. Man loves sin so 
dearly, hates holiness so heartily, and is so 



REPENTING. 5 1 

4 

chained down to the world and vanity, that 
Omnipotence alone can effectually turn 
him to God, and holiness, and truth. " We 
are his workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus, unto good works." * 

What a delightful view, also, of the good- 
ness, mercy, and compassion of God have we 
exhibited in the gospel of Jesus Christ ! 
Job was sent to learn something of the 
beauty and glory of God, from the peacock 
spreading his rainbow wings to the sun. 
You may learn the same lesson far better, 
in the mild lustre, the holy beauty, the 
lovely harmony of the divine perfections, 
as seen in Him, who is the brightness of. 
his Father's glory, and the express image 
of his person. 2 I said indeed, and I retract 
not the assertion, that the eye of faith may 
read, "God is infinitely holy /" in the cross 
of Christ ; yet sure I am, that the eye of 
gratitude may read, if tears permit, " God is 
love!" as that sentiment shines forth, in 
characters of grace, from the same cross. 
Was it not love, — Christians, let me appeal 

1 Eph. ii. 10. 2 Heb. i. 3. 



52 THE SOUL 

to your best feelings, — was it not pity, 
mercy, love unparalleled, for God, against 
whom you had so sinned, to give his well- 
beloved Son to suffer, bleed, and die, for 
such as you, the just for the unjust, the sin- 
less for the sinful, the pure, holy, obedient 
child Jesus, for the impure, polluted, dis- 
obedient rebel ? 

And now reflect, my brethren, on even 
the poor view of God now presented, — a 
view so poor, that I am ashamed of it, and 
fear lest I may have depreciated what I 
honestly wisja to magnify : — but my comfort 
is, that it is God himself, blessing my feeble 
words, and so magnifying himself in the 
weakness of the instrument employed, who 
is to give you right views of himself. Think 
then, and pray while you think, of God 
in Christ Jesus, as omniscient, most holy, 
almighty, and all-gracious. Be«not satisfied 
to hear this with the hearing of the ear, but 
let the soul's eye see it. Then reflect, This, 
mv soul, is the God with whom thou hast 
to do ! This is He, against whom thou hast 
sinned ! This is He, whose wisdom thou 



REPENTING. 53 

hast impeached by thy proud reasonings ; 
whose holiness thou hast insulted by impure 
thoughts, corrupt desires, filthy conversa- 
tion ; this is He, whose power thou hast 
defied by daring his vengeance ; this is He, 
— and Oh, my brethren, this to my mind is 
the most affecting of all considerations — 
whose love and goodness thou hast grieved, 
by refusing his grace, and disobeying his 
paternal will ! 

Brethren, do you see the God, with 
whom every one of your souls must have a 
solemn meeting ? Oh, do not hide your- 
selves from him ! It will not do. Every 
soul amongst you must go before the Being, 
whom I have imperfectly described; and 
then and there every soul must answer for 
all the sin and rebellion of this present life. 
And now, God's eye is fixed upon your soul : 
— not, I believe, in anger ; though it well 
might be ; — but rather, with a father's pity 
and anxiety : — that look pleads, O sinner, 
with thy soul : God speaks to thy heart by 
that penetrating glance : — " Is my charac- 
ter such as to deserve thy unkind thoughts 

F 3 



54 THE SOUL 

and rebellious treatment ? what have I done 
unto thee, and wherein have I wearied 
thee ? testify against me. 1 Is there nothing 
in me to attract thy admiration, and pro- 
duce compunction ? Is the heart too hard 
to yield to the call of such a Father ? Why 
wilt thou die ? why not repent ? why not 
believe in Christ and be saved ? must I and 
thou be separated for eternity through thy 
folly and perverseness ?" 

My friends, ye ought now to be ready 
for our Third part. " Wherefore I abhor 
myself, and repent in dust and ashes" There 
is the soul brought, in the full exercise of 
genuine repentance, to loathe itself before 
God. I know, brethren, how very hum- 
bling is that language. I am aware that 
young Christians sometimes honestly con- 
fess, that they cannot use such language 
regarding themselves. I am sensible that 
worldly people would think the man a 
fanatic, who should say that he abhorred 
himself. But when I consider who God is, 
against whom you and I have dared to sim 

1 Mic. vi. 3. 



REPENTING. 55 

times without number ; I am sure that no 
language can be too strong, to describe how 
we ought to look upon ourselves before 
him. Job said once, " Behold, I am vile ! " 
and here again, " I abhor myself." Isaiah 
used similar language, " Woe is me, for I 
am undone ; because I am a man of unclean 
lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of 
unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the 
King, the Lord of hosts ;" '—where you 
observe a like cause, the soul's vision of 
God in his glory, produce a like effect, the 
deepest humiliation. Again, mark God's 
own description, in Ezekiel, of the effects of 
true repentance : " Then shall ye remem- 
ber your own evil ways, and your doings 
that were not good, and shall loathe your- 
selves in your own sight for your iniquities 
and for your abominations." 2 The Psalms 
also, as you remember, abound with the 
most humiliating expressions of self-abhor- 
rence for sin. Daniel's language corres- 
ponds, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth 

1 Isaiah vi. 5. 2 Ezek. xxxvi. 31. See also xx. 43, 
and vi. 9. 






56 THE SOUL 

unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, 
because we have sinned against thee.'' 1 
St. Paul likewise calls himself " the chief of 
sinners." 2 

Such, brethren, were the expressions of 
humiliation, made by men, some of whom 
we often speak of as among the holiest 
and best of men. They spake of them- 
selves as the worst. And they really meant 
what they said : such was their view of 
God, such their knowledge of themselves. 
What then are we 9 Have we no cause to 
abhor ourselves, to marvel at our pride, to 
stand amazed at our own image, as reflected 
in the faithful mirror of God's Word ? 
There ! — God says to us, having first shown 
his own glorious character to our souls, — 
There ! turn and see that creature-spirit, 
full of pride, perverseness, enmity, unclean- 
ness ! mark, how deeply it has revolted 
from its proper Lord, how thoroughly it is 
polluted, how presumptuous, how deceitful, 
how desperately wicked is that soul ! what 
a sinful creature, how laden with iniquity, 

1 Dan. ix. 7,8. 2 1 Tim. i. 15. 



REPENTING. 57 

liow prone to corrupt others ! — and whose 
is that soul ? Thy own, as God found it ! 
that was thy true character ! See thyself, 
as God sees thee, and learn to say with Job, 
" I abhor myself." 

Is that language still too humbling ? 
Why ! you abhor ingratitude : — your own 
soul has been very ungrateful to God. You 
abhor treachery : — you have betrayed the 
charge intrusted to your care, you have 
betrayed the interests of God, you have 
acted un unfaithful part. You abhor false- 
hood : — yet, have you never professed to 
know God, yet in works denied him ? You 
abhor a viper, and would start with horror 
if you saw one in your path : — yet you have 
cherished the viper, sin, in your own bosom. 
You abhor the sight, and almost the very 
mention of death : — and yet you seem to 
have loved death rather than life by indulg- 
ing sin. Oh, what is there which is ab- 
horred among men, which we may not 
individually find in what has been the 
temper, spirit, character of our own sinful 
soul? 






58 . THE SOUL 

" And I repent" said Job, "" in dust and 
ashes" This was at that time the mode of 
expressing the deepest penitence. Outward 
forms and modes of expression change ; — 
the inward principle is universally the same. 
It is not to the sackcloth on the loins, or 
the dust and ashes on the head, that God 
so looks, as to the broken and contrite 
heart. Having this, you will be neither 
proud in manner nor arrogant in speech. 
And if you have it not, then, no outward 
signs, no sorrowing looks, no tears, no 
mourning weeds, no dust and ashes, no 
humble speeches can prove you penitents 
indeed. How anxiously do I now ask, 
Have you the broken heart ? is yours the 
contrite spirit ? Yours was the soul in 
danger : is yours the soul repenting ? 

Does some soul inwardly answer, " Mine 
is not ! my soul does not repent : I abhor 
not myself : this discourse has carried the 
matter too far ? " Sinner, go, search the 
Word of God, and see whether these things 
are so. Find out for thyself the character 
of God as revealed by himself in the Bible. 



REPENTING. 59 

Search also into thyself. Ask conscience 
to tell thee thy own character. Pray for 
the Holy Spirit to show thee God as He 
is in himself, and man as he is in thyself. 
Compare and contrast these two beings 
together, and ask, Are they at all alike ? 
have they any moral resemblance to each 
other ? how then can they have communion 
together throughout eternity ? Sinner, when 
thou hast thus discovered something of 
the opposite characters of God and man, 
and art humbled at the discovery, I tell 
thee of Him, who was both God and 
man; who had all the perfections of Deity, 
and took on him all those of humanitv, 
and came on earth, and lived and died as 
man, to reconcile thee to God. For his 
sake, and through faith in his name, thou 
mayst be freely justified. Then, love to 
him will sway thy heart. Thou wilt then 
long to be like him. His Spirit, who has 
created thee anew, will be thy gracious 
guide, comforter, and sanctifier. Sinner, 
wilt thou now repent and abhor thyself? 
Will not that be better than to reproach 



60 



THE SOUL 



thyself with wailing and gnashing of teeth 
in hell ? Sinner, many of us mean to pray 
for thee this evening. May God soften thy 
hard heart, and give thee repentance unto 
life ! 

Penitents, humbled and abased in heart, 
let me speak to you a word of comfort 
What I said in my former lecture I repeat 
now. You are not bound by the order of 
this course of sermons. You need not wait 
for the next lecture, before you allow the 
soul repenting to become the soul believing. 
Faith in Jesus Christ as your Saviour will 
improve and deepen, and not spoil or lessen 
your repentance. Take then that sorrow- 
ing soul to him, all pierced and broken, all 
bruised and bleeding as it is. He will not 
cast it out. He never did, he never will 
cast out any soul that would come unto 
God by him. "A bruised reed shall he 
not break, and smoking flax shall he not 
quench." * Let the same Holy Spirit, who 
has so convinced you of sin, fulfil his 
other offices of leading you to Jesus, 

1 Matt. xii. 20. 



REPENTING. 61 

making you truly his, comforting the heart, 
which his grace has broken. Say not, 
Shall I go back to God ? but, " I will arise, 
and go to my father!" 1 With a soul in 
such danger, with such a God and Father, 
such a Saviour, so great a salvation offered, 
I cannot hesitate, I must, I will go : I will 
take with me words : I will say in secret 
to him who seeth in secret, Great and 
glorious God, pity a vile sinner ! Lo ! I 
bring thee a perverse heart, I lay before 
thee a gift which I myself abhor : yet look 
upon this loathsome thing ; have compas- 
sion upon this guilty soul! Father, take 
it : Jesus, present it : cleanse it first in thy 
own blood, create it anew by thy Spirit, 
transform it, chasten it, do with it what thou 
wilt, only pity, pardon, save my poor soul ! 

Godly mourners, who have sorrowed for 
sin long ago, you hardly need to be re- 
minded, that your repentance should be- 
come more deep and solid, more affectionate 
and hearty, as you grow in grace, and gain 
better views of God. Repentance begins 

l Luke xv. 18. 
G 



62 THE SOUL REPENTING. 

before saving faith, yet is improved and 

deepened after it, and by it. Let us go, 

and in secret humble ourselves before God, 

thankfully acknowledging repentance as a 

gift, and earnestly praying for grace that we 

may bring forth fruits meet for repentance. 

Brethren, there is joy in heaven over 

one sinner that repenteth. Has there 

been, shall there be, joy over you ? When 

angels pause upon their golden harps, to 

make silence for music sweeter than their 

own, it is when the sorrowful sighing of 

a soul repenting ascends to the ear of 

God, through the mediation of Christ. 

Have you given them that joy ? When 

Jesus, surrounded as he is with praises, 

and glorious in happiness, feels a new 

satisfaction thrill his sacred bosom, it is 

when he again sees of the travail of his 

soul, in another sinful soul repenting at 

the view of God, presented in his cross. 

Has he that satisfaction in you ? Is yours, 

is mine, is every soul I am addressing, the 

soul repenting F I leave that question on 

your conscience. 



SERMON III. 



THE SOUL BELIEVING 



ROMANS X. 10. 

With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. 

We come this evening to a most im- 
portant point in our brief history of a saved 
soul : — to a point so important, that I ap- 
proach it with trembling, on account of 
the responsibility in which it will involve 
both preacher and hearers. We have 
traced how the soul in danger becomes the 
soul repenting. We have now to consider 
the soul believing. And this is the cardinal 
point of the whole series. Without an 
experimental understanding of our present 



64 THE SOUL 

subject, no soul amongst you can be saved. 
Need I, then, claim your attention ? May 
I not beg your prayers ? May the God of 
all grace be pleased to make his word, how- 
ever feebly spoken at this time, the instru- 
ment of giving and confirming the faith 
which saves the soul ! Let us consider, 

I. The righteousness required. 

II. The heart receiving and appropriating 
that righteousness by faith. Consider, 

I. The righteousness required. And 
here observe carefully, that the point of 
inquiry is not what is the righteousness 
required by the decencies of society, the 
opinion of the world, or the self-compla- 
cency of a man's own heart ; but the question 
is, What will satisfy God ? What righteous- 
ness is absolutely necessary in order to 
justification before God ? 

You have heard, in our first lecture, that 
man is very far gone from original righteous- 
ness, and that your actual sins of word, 
thought, and deed, have been personal 
transgressions of God's holy will. You have 
also heard that the " wages of sin is death ;'' 



BELIEVING. 65 

" the soul that sinneth it shall die." The 
soul, thus separated from God by original 
and actual sin, is already dead in trespasses 
and sins. Every day also brings natural 
death nearer. And then, the soul, so long 
and so far separate from God, approaches 
him but for judgment, and after judgment 
to be driven from his presence into per- 
petual exile. This is eternal death. But 
how shall we escape ? what is requisite in 
order to our acquittal in that day 1 Righte- 
ousness is needed ! and that, not a partial 
or imperfect thing, but a righteousness com- 
plete in all its parts, full, perfect, and en- 
tire, without a particle of obedience wanting, 
without one spot, taint, or blemish, to mar 
its beauty. The righteousness, which is to 
procure your soul's justification with God, 
must fully answer to all the demands of 
his law, understood in its spiritual mean- 
ing as well as in the letter. That law says, 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, mmd, 
and strength, and thy neighbour as thy- 
self." A righteousness which fully agrees 

G 3 



66 THE SOUL 

with that law, is what every soul must 
have to produce and plead, if ever justified. 
And in this no one can deceive God. " All 
things are naked and opened unto the eyes 
of him with whom we have to do." 1 The 
righteousness, which we must have to plead, 
must be such as will bear the strictest 
scrutiny which the eye of the Omniscient 
can give. Our title to it must be sound 
and valid. No merely nominal claim, no 
hypocritical pretence, no arrogant profes- 
sion, will deceive God. 

Now consider : have you such a righte- 
ousness in yourself and of your own ? Is 
there one present self-righteous enough to 
imagine that he really has the righteousness 
described, all his own, consisting of his own 
merits, produced by his own strength ? 
Have you never sinned, even in thought ? 
never loved in heart what God disapproves ? 
Yet this alone were enough to vitiate your 
whole goodness. For God's holy law re- 
quires entire conformity of heart to his will : 
it forbids even to covet with the heart. 

1 Heb. iv. 13. 



BELIEVING. 67 

And his truth is immutable. He will not 
set aside his law, falsify his word, and dis- 
honour his perfections, in order to gratify 
human pride. 

Not only would one corrupt thought be 
sufficient to prove that you have not the 
righteousness which God requires, but also 
one single omission of a commanded duty 
would produce the same result. To omit 
a plain duty is to commit a sin : it is the 
refusing to do what God commands. Then, 
if you have ever left undone the thing which 
you ought to have done, you are not per- 
sonally righteous before God. 

But, one sin of heart, or one sin of omis- 
sion, has not sufficed. Sin has been seen by 
God breaking out in the actual life. He 
has heard sin in every idle, profane, false 
word : he has seen it in the wanton eye : 
he has traced it in the foot swift to do evil : 
he has observed the hand doing what it 
ought not ; your sins, in God's sight, are 
more in number than the hairs upon your 
head. Where then is your pretended righ- 
teousness ? 



68 THE SOUL 

Perhaps you think that I forget your 
good deeds, your alms-giving, church-going, 
honesty, and other virtues. Those things 
are good and right in their place. But they 
are miserably out of place, if set up as a 
righteousness sufficient for your justifica- 
tion with God ; as well might you make a 
bridge of spiders' webs, in order to cross a 
foaming torrent, or a rope of sand where- 
with to bind a strong man armed. If this 
is your policy, the men of Babel were as 
wise as you, when they tried to make a 
tower which should reach heaven. These 
good deeds do not set aside that one bad 
thought, nor make up for that one omitted 
duty. Nay, they are themselves defective, 
and require forgiveness. Are you startled 
at this ? Then only try them by God's 
Word. For instance, one of your good 
deeds, so called, is this : " I pay every one 
his due." And what does this mean ? Why, 
that, if a master, you defraud not your ser- 
vant; if a servant, you defraud not your 
master ; if a tradesman, you impose not on 
customers ; if you contract a debt, you duly 



BELIEVING. 69 

discharge it ; though poor, it may be, yet 
you manage to pay your way. All this is 
good. Would that all professing Christians 
were as honest! The man is not a true 
Christian, who neglects all this. But here 
is your danger ; lest this should be substi- 
tuted for that righteousness, which alone 
answers the requirement of the law of God. 
Have you paid God his due ? has he re- 
ceived from you his proper tribute of love, 
obedience, service ? If not, believe me, 
you cannot be justified by having, as you 
say, paid every one his due. That plea, so 
defective as regards God, will also be found 
wanting as regards man, when weighed in 
the balances of the sanctuary. Thou owest 
to man a great debt of love. Thou shouldest 
have taught him in his ignorance, helped 
him in his distress, visited him in his afflic- 
tion, loved him as thyself. Has it been so ? 
Ask conscience : then, never open thy mouth 
again to plead before God, "Not guilty" 
when he charges thee with sin. 

And so with all other pleas wherewith 
men attempt to justify themselves. They 



70 THE SOUL 

are all leaky vessels, broken cisterns, and 
mere refuges of lies. To lean on them is to 
rest on the staff of a bruised reed. 

Thus we have not found the righteous- 
ness required for your soul's justification 
with God. Will you borrow one from men ? 
Alas ! where will you find it ? " There is 
none righteous, no, not one." 1 None can 
redeem his brother, or himself. The fall 
affected all mankind. Every individual, 
capable of actual sin, has personally trans- 
gressed against God. 

Shall we seek a righteousness for our souls 
in the superabundant merit of departed 
saints ? Seek it by all means, I would say, 
if there were such a thing to be found. 
But they were all sinners. Their best obe- 
dience was defective. Whatever Papists 
may fondly think, no saint in heaven has 
one atom of superabundant righteousness 
to spare, that it may be transferred to your 
account. 

Then, will you try the angels? They 
are righteous, pure, and holy : — a gleam of 

1 Rom. iii. 10. 



BELIEVING. 71 

hope appears ; — lo ! it is no sooner seen 
than gone. Their righteousness, though 
sufficient to keep them in heaven, is not 
sufficient for any beside themselves. They 
do their duty, they cannot do more. Theirs 
also is angelic righteousness, which is dis- 
tinct from that of man, which must be per- 
formed in man's nature, and according to 
what God requires of man. The Scripture 
is silent as death, when men call on angels 
to help them with their righteousness. It 
is as when the prophets of Baal called on 
their idol god, " there was neither voice, 
nor any to answer, nor any that re- 
garded." * 

My friends, the question is become very 
serious ; the case is truly urgent. You 
must have a righteousness for your soul's 
justification. You have none of your own. 
We have looked around us among living 
men, and could find none. We have tried 
departed saints and angels in heaven, but 
in vain. And yet you must have such a 
righteousness. Meanwhile, time speeds on ; 

1 1 Kings xviii. 29. 



72 THE SOUL 

life hangs but by a thread ; death is ap- 
proaching ; and as death finds you, so will 
judgment. "■ Where the tree falleth, there 
it shall be." l 

Must then my guilty soul go before God, 
without a righteousness to offer, unjustified, 
and without hope ? Is there no way of 
escape ? what must I do ? to whom must I 
look to be saved ? 

My fellow-sinner, the righteousness which 
your soul requires, God has himself pro- 
vided, and offers for your acceptance in 
Jesus Christ, his own well-beloved and only- 
begotten Son. The fact is truly wonderful. 
He, whom we are taught to call Jesus 
Christ, was the eternal Son of God, one 
with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He 
was loved by the Father, and had glory 
with him before the foundation of the 
world. 2 He was with the Father when the 
world was made, and by him all things 
were made. 3 Such, then, was his original 
and proper dignity, as the Son of God, — 
a dignity, observe, infinitely glorious, alto- 

l Eccles. xi. 3. 2 John xvii. 5, 24. 3 j hn i. 3. 



BELIEVING. 73 

gether perfect, eternal, and divine, — a dig- 
nity, which could not be destroyed or mar- 
red by any humiliation which the same 
divine person, in another form, might sub- 
mit to undergo, while it would throw around 
that humiliation the radiance of its own 
glory, and the infinitude of its own merit. 

Now, mark the w r ord of God : This 
" Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of 
God, thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God, made himself of no reputation," 
— literally, emptied himself, — u and took 
upon him the form of a servant, and was 
made in the likeness of men : and being 
found in fashion as a man, he humbled him- 
self, and became obedient unto death, even 
the death of the cross/' 1 There is his 
humiliation ! He who was " equal with 
God," "the Fellow of the Lord of hosts," 2 
became man, took upon him the form of a 
servant, obeyed and served God in human 
nature, and at length died upon the cross. 
Is there mystery in all this ? Yea, " great 
is the mystery of godliness, God was mani- 

l Phil. ii. j6— 8. 2 Zech. xiii. 7. 



/4 THE SOUL 

fest in the flesh." * Wonderful and beyond 
all finite comprehension was the fact ; infi- 
nite was the condescension of the Son of 
God becoming the son of man ! But, re- 
member, his humiliation as man does not 
take from his glory as God ; yea, his glory 
as God gives an infinite value to his humilia- 
tion as man. 

For this humiliation was also quite volun- 
tary on his part. No other ever had it put 
to his choice, whether he would become 
man. " Then said he, Lo, I come to do 
thy will, O God." 2 Accordingly, " when the 
fulness of the time was come, God sent 
forth his Son, made of a woman, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were 
under the law, that we might receive the 
adoption of sons." 3 Thus his incarnation 
was voluntary for man, full of condescen- 
sion, infinite in merit. " For us men, and for 
our salvation, he came down from heaven." 

This Saviour was perfectly righteous and 
holy, as man, from first to last. Being con- 

1 1 Tim. iii. 16. 2 Heb, x. 9 ; Psalm xl. 7. 

3 Gal. iv. 4, 5. 



BELIEVING. 75 

ceived by the Holy Ghost, he was exempt 
from all taint and infection of original sin. 
Surely the Holy Ghost could not be the 
author of an unholy nature ! And did not 
the angel say expressly to Mary, "■ That 
holy thing which shall be born of thee shall 
be called the Son of God ?" x How differ- 
ent that language from David's ! how differ- 
ent from what we ought to confess, " Be- 
hold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin 
did my mother conceive me." 2 Christ 
knew no sin. 3 He was, from the very first, 
in heart as well as in life, a lamb without 
blemish and without spot. 4 

And so, throughout life, righteousness 
marked his character and conduct. He 
did love God with all his heart, mind, soul, 
and strength. It was his meat and drink to 
do his Father's will. His Father's glory 
was his ruling object ; his Father's work his 
loved employ ; his Father's house the place 
which his feet delighted to tread. Repeat- 
edly did the Father give his express appro 

1 Luke i. 35. 2 Psalm n # 5> 3 2 Cor. v. 21. 

4 1 Peter i. 19. 



76 THE SOUL 

bation from heaven, to certify to men how 
well pleased he was with this his well-be- 
loved Son. Christ loved too his neighbour as 
himself; and that with a love so disinter- 
ested, self-denying, and beneficent, as the 
world never saw before or since. Many 
injuries could not destroy, much coldness 
could not damp, cruel insults could not ex- 
tinguish that love to man, which filled his 
sacred bosom. " He went about doing 
good" 1 to the world which treated him un- 
kindly. Even when persecuted to the very 
death, and nailed to the cross, while his 
body was excruciated with pain, his ears 
wounded with taunts, and his eyes, looking 
around for sympathy, saw heads mocking 
with scorn ; — even then, he felt no ill-will, 
he harboured no vengeance, he prayed for 
his murderers, " Father, forgive them ; for 
they know not what they do." 2 Thus 
was he righteous, full of love to God and 
man, in life and in death. His very enemies 
could prove no charge against him. His 
judge confessed that he could find no harm 

1 Acts x. 38. 2 Luke xxiii. 34. 



BELIEVING, 77 

in him. The Roman centurion, who 
watched his cross, was forced to exclaim, 
" Certainly this was a righteous man ! " \ 

And as his life, so also his death, was 
altogether voluntary, and for the sake of 
men. Observe his own language on this 
point : " Therefore doth my Father love 
me, because I lay down my life, that I 
might take it again. No man taketh it from 
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again." 2 Thus he died voluntarily ; 
— his Father's counsels, his own consent, 
the malicious motives of his enemies, and 
the necessities of our souls, were causes 
which worked together to produce the same 
end, namely, that he should die the death 
of the cross. And thus he died, not for 
himself. Death is the wages of sin ; but 
he had done no sin. Death is the conse- 
quence of Adam's transgression, in which 
he had no share. "He suffered," we are 
expressly told, "the just for the unjust, that 
he might bring us to God." 3 

l Lukexxiii. 47. 2 J hn x. 17, 18. 3 i p e ter iii. 18. 
H3 



73 THE SOUL 

His death has, in fact, the character of 
an atoning sacrifice. His original dignity 
as the Son of God gave infinite merit to 
this his voluntary death for men, as the Son 
of man. What other sacrifices could only 
do typically, his death did actually. It was 
the oblation of the Lamb of God, without 
blemish and without spot, as a sacrifice for 
sins. It at once honoured the justice, holi- 
ness, and love of God ; it magnified the 
divine perfections, it vindicated the rights 
of Deity, it conferred invaluable benefits on 
guilty men. 

And thus, brethren, our inquiry is an- 
swered. We have found the pearl of great 
price. Here, in Christ Jesus, is the righte- 
ousness which your soul needs. All is pre- 
pared and made ready for your acceptance. 
Your joy in this discovery should be greater 
than that of Archimedes, when, on making 
a philosophical discovery, he ran through 
the streets of Syracuse, crying, ev^m, evpritca, 
" I have found it ! I have found it ! " 

Yet, pause a little and think. You have 
found the pearl : — have you made it yours ? 



BELIEVING. 79 

You have heard of a righteousness fully 
sufficient for your justification : — have you 
accepted it, as it is proposed, without doubt- 
ing, wavering, or mental reservation ? You 
once thought much of your own righteous- 
ness : — are you convinced that you have 
none like Christ's ? It were a shame to 
compare them together : — yours, mere filthy 
rags, tattered, patched, stained ; His, a seam- 
less robe, an entire garment, a mantle of sal- 
vation : your righteousness worse than worth- 
less, His infinitely precious ; yours a leaky 
bark, in which if you attempt to sail, you 
must soon sink to rise no more; His a 
gallant, noble vessel, in which you may 
safely ride over the waves of this trouble- 
some world, and however tempest-tossed at 
times, yet at length reach joyfully the 
wished-for haven. 

And this righteousness of Christ may be 
yours ! What an animating thought ! How 
ought it to stir up every sluggish soul ! If 
I offered you gold and silver, you would all 

k awake to earnestness. If I read to you a 
will, which bequeathed to you an estate, 



80 THE SOUL 

your eyes would sparkle with delight. If I 
pretended to tell your future fortunes for 
this world, you would be anxious to hear. 
If I came to you in prison, and offered the 
king's pardon, I should be a welcome mes- 
senger. But now, when I am commissioned 
to offer, in God's name, what is better for 
your soul than gold and silver, houses and 
lands, worldly good fortune, and the king's 
pardon ; when I come to offer you the 
righteousness of Christ for your justifica- 
tion, and his unsearchable riches for your 
eternal portion, now, it may be, some soul 
heeds me not. Ah ! that is still the soul in 
danger. And is it content to remain in 
that fearful state ? Then, brethren, let that 
soul have no companion in perverseness. 
Let all others pity that soul, and pray for 
its conversion. But walk not with it in that 
dangerous road. " My friend/' let me say 
to each of you, " your soul is too precious 
to be so thrown away." 

We proceed to our Second part, which is 
to tell how the righteousness, shown you in 
our first part, may be appropriated, or made 



BELIEVING. 81 

yours : — by your soul's faith. " With the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness" The 
Scripture is very clear on this point. I 
beg your serious attention to the follow- 
ing texts in proof. Rom. iii. 20, 22 : " By 
the deeds of the law there shall no flesh 
be justified in his sight : for by the law is 
the knowledge of sin. But now the righte- 
ousness of God without the law is mani- 
fested, being witnessed by the law and the 
prophets ; even the righteousness of God, 
which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all 
and upon all them that believe." Faith, 
you perceive, is the principle, which appro- 
priates the righteousness which justifies. So 
again, Gal. ii. 16 : <( Knowing that a man is 
not justified by the works of the law, but 
by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have 
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be 
justified by the faith of Christ, and not by 
the works of the law : for by the works of 
the law shall no flesh be justified/' Nothing 
surely can be more express to prove, that it 
is only by faith that men can be justified. 
So, also, when the gaoler at Philippi put 



82 THE SOUL 

the great question, "What must I do to 
be saved ?" the answer was, " Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved." l 

These scriptures are so very clear, that I 
add but one more to prove that the righte- 
ousness of Christ is to be appropriated, or 
made yours, by faith : Phil. iii. 3, 9 : " That 
I may win Christ, and be found in him, not 
having my own righteousness, which is of 
the law, but that which is through the faith 
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God 
by faith." 

All these scriptures agree with one voice 
in declaring, that faith is the divinely ap- 
pointed principle, by which your soul is to 
become savingly interested in the meritorious 
righteousness of Christ. This faith is a lively 
persuasion of the heart of the truth of 
God's word of promise made to us by Jesus 
Christ. It is simply the believing and acting 
upon what God says to us respecting the 
person, work, character, and office of Jesus 
Christ. In yet more simple terms, it is to 

1 Acts xvi. 31. 



BELIEVING, 83 

take God at his word. God says : Your 
soul is in danger ; but I have provided a 
way for your soul's escape. I have given 
my dear and only-begotten Son to become 
a child of suffering and a man of sorrows. 
I allowed him to be crucified for sinners. 
I could have sent legions of angels to his 
rescue, have rained down fire from heaven 
upon his foes, have made the earth open her 
mouth and swallow up his murderers, yea, 
I could have transformed his cross into a 
throne, and his crown of thorns into a royal 
diadem : — but he did not ask it : though I 
loved him so tenderly, I left him to suffer. 
And it was for you, sinners, that he might 
make an atonement sufficient to cover all 
your guilt, that his righteousness might be 
made available for your acceptance and justi- 
fication. And now all I ask is, Believe this 
my love, accept this my Son as your Saviour ! 
Consent to be made righteous through faith 
in his name. And, is not this a method 
easy and pleasant for you ? why will ye not 
believe ? why will ye die ? 

But, my friends, this faith must be the 



84 THE SOUL 

lively persuasion of the heart. It is not 
the head which understands, the mind 
which assents, "the tongue which says, " / 
believe" which will suffice to make you a 
true believer, personally interested in the 
righteousness of Christ. " With the heart 
man believeth unto righteousness.'' It is 
when the heart, humbled by God's grace, 
pierced with godly sorrow, and broken with 
deep contrition, yields to the recorded testi- 
mony of God as to the sufficiency of Jesus 
Christ, consents also to be saved entirely 
through him, and rejoices to rest upon his 
faithful promise ; then it is that you have 
the faith which justifies and saves. 

And this faith is the only principle, which 
can receive and appropriate the justifying 
righteousness of Christ. For this, though 
matter of solid fact, is warranted to us on 
testimony ; and testimony is to be received 
on credit or by faith. That Christ was the 
Son of God, was miraculously born, lived 
righteously, died on the cross, rose again 
from the dead; — these are solid facts, sub- 
stantiated by convincing testimony. So 



BELIEVING. 85 

the doctrines connected with those facts 
have the testimony of God to their truth, 
and are sealed and sanctioned by the tes- 
timony of many faithful witnesses. And to 
this testimony of God and his servants, 
conscience echoes from within. The offers 
of God in Christ Jesus appeal to your own 
conscience, even to your internal sense of 
guilt, which makes you shrink from God ; 
they appeal to the moral wants and cravings 
of your nature ; they propose a balm for 
that wounded spirit, a healing balsam for 
that bruised soul, a full and free pardon, 
yea, a complete justification for that guilty 
creature. And thus, these various tes- 
timonies all appeal to faith: — receive us, 
yield to our persuasion, act by our sugges- 
tion, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
be saved. 

This only method, though so simple, yet 
also exceedingly honours God. We can 
devise no other method which would not 
sully his glory. Would you still have him 
forgive and justify sinners without a sacrifice 
for sin ? Then his law would have been 



86 THE SOUL 

broken by you times without number, its 
threatenings would be made a dead letter, and 
his truth Justice, holiness, would be trampled 
under foot with impunity. Surely that can- 
not be. Would you have him give you sal- 
vation for your own goodness ? And have 
you yet to learn, that you have none — 
nothing of your own which at all comes 
up to God's standard of moral goodness ? 
Would you have that standard lowered to 
your level ? That would be to ask God to 
call good evil, and evil good — to call dark- 
ness light, and light darkness ! Would 
you have repentance made a passport for 
heaven ? I ask, in reply, Can human jus- 
tice suffer that ? If a man commit murder, 
is the law satisfied with his repentance ? If 
tears of contrition would efface the stain of 
blood, we should soon have abundance of 
murders, followed by abundance of repent- 
ance. Surely the justice of God is as full of 
majesty as that of man ! 

Have you yet other objections against 
the blessed doctrine of justification by faith 
only ? Would you prefer to be rather jus- 



BELIEVING. 87 

titled, partly by yourselves,, and partly by 
Christ ? Oh when will you cease to flatter 
that proud thing called self? I entreat you 
to beware of that mistake of mingling your 
own works with Christ's in the matter of 
justification. That mistake has been for 
ages the millstone about the neck of the 
Romish Church. Again and again has that 
fond notion attempted to corrupt the Pro- 
testant churches from the simplicity that is 
in Christ. In our Church of England, 
though our articles, homilies,, liturgy, and 
scriptures all testify against it, yet that mis- 
taken notion, — the expression is too soft, — 
that fatal error, that we are to be justified, 
partly by Christ, and partly by ourselves, 
by our own works, merits, sufferings, re- 
pentance, has been, and still is frequently 
held, to the dishonour of Christ, and the 
ruin of souls. And what is its harm ? say 
some. It is this : God offers you a full 
justification freely, through the alone merits 
of Christ, and invites you to receive it by 
faith, and be saved. Then you come to 
him and say, " Not so ; I will not be jus- 



88 THE SOUL 

titled in that way ; I have a way and a will 
of my own. I will be saved partly by my 
own merits, and will leave it to Christ to 
supply the deficiency. 

Now that is presumption in its very 
essence. It impeaches the Divine wisdom, 
as though God did not know the best way 
of saving you ; it throws contempt on the 
Son of God, as if his Divine merits required 
something of yours to make them perfect or 
sufficient ; yea, it claims a worth for your 
works, which no works of yours can have. 
If that has been your trust, you have been 
under a most dangerous delusion. Search 
the Scriptures and see. Examine the texts 
which I have already brought forward. Find, 
if you can, those which set them aside. 
Believe me, nay, believe God who testifies 
to this weighty truth, that Jesus Christ will 
be every thing to you in regard to justification, 
or he will be nothing. 

My friends, I have done, and let me 
hope that you have done with cavils and 
objections. Rather admire with me how 
the method of our being justified by faith 



BELIEVING. S9 

honours every attribute of God. How it 
manifests his holiness ! See, it says, the 
evil and malignity of sin ! Look, sinner, at 
that bleeding Lamb ! mark his agonies ! 
listen to his dying cries ! Your sin did that. 
Christ, the sinless and righteous Lord, must 
thus suffer, bleed, and die, or you could 
not have been saved. So holy is God ! 

Then, mark God's justice. His law said, 
" The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Your 
soul has sinned. If you escape the second 
death, it is only because Christ, whom God, 
who is himself the Lawgiver, allows to be 
your substitute and surety, undertook your 
cause. Lie tasted death for you ; he bowed 
the head and gave up the ghost, that your 
soul might live. Is not the justice of God 
as fully vindicated, when a sinner's soul 
believes in Christ, and is forgiven for his 
sake, as when a sinner's soul, refusing to 
believe, is punished with everlasting de- 
struction ? 

And, further, is not the love of God glo- 
riously proved by this Divine method of 
saving souls ? I more than doubt whether 



90 THE SOUL 

any, who do not believe in Christ for their 
justification, have any right idea of the love 
of God. It is seen, indeed, in creation ; 
it beams forth in providence ; but it shines 
with a mild glory in the incarnation, suffer- 
ings, and death of God's own dear Son. 

Lastly, this method of justification by 
faith is admirable, because it gives all the 
glory of salvation entirely to God through 
Christ. It excludes all boasting. If you 
are justified, it is entirely through God's 
mercy, Christ's merits, and the Holy Spirit's 
operation. Not a particle or atom of the 
praise belongs properly and strictly to your- 
self. It you are saved, it is only because 
of what Jesus Christ did and suffered for 
sinners. 

" Yes," say some ; " but is it no merit in 
me to be a believer ? All men have not faith. 
If I have brought myself to believe, surely 
that is a good work." Ah ! there is self 
once again. Oh, how many forms has that 
Proteus, how many colours has that cha- 
meleon, how many heads has that hydra, 
self! You brought yourself to believe ! I 



BELIEVING. 91 

must doubt whether you know what it is 
to believe. God only can have brought you. 
" Unto you it is given to believe." l " By 
grace ye are saved through faith ; and that 
not of yourselves : it is the gift of God." 2 

The truth is, to believe in Christ is both 
a duty and a privilege. Men are to be in- 
vited, exhorted, and entreated to believe. 
They are guilty for not believing, when 
God invites ; they then become inexcusable ; 
yea, the Saviour plainly declares, " He that 
believeth not shall be damned." 3 Yet, when 
any do believe, they are to ascribe their 
faith not to themselves, but to the grace of 
God, the Holy Spirit, working faith into 
their hearts. It is he who blesses the word 
of truth, which men hear, and makes them 
willing to be saved in the day of Christ's 
power : he strengthens the weak hand of 
the trembling penitent, and enables him to 
take hold of the extended hand of the Sa- 
viour of the lost. Do you now believe ? 
And was it not your duty to believe long 
ago ? But you had then no heart to be- 

1 Phil. i. 29. 2 Eph. ii. 8. 3 Mark xvi. 16. 



92 THE SOUL 

lieve ; you had only that evil heart of un- 
belief. Is that now quite gone, and have 
you, in its stead, the heart which simply, 
singly, affectionately believes on Jesus Christ 
for salvation ? Then I am sure you will 
not refuse to glorify God and say, " Not 
unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy 
name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy 
truth's sake." 1 

Brethren, before we part, I have to pro- 
pose so serious a question, that I tremble in 
putting it. Ask then yourselves individually, 
Is mine tlie soul believing unto righteousness $ 

If riot, yours is still the soul in danger. 
Excuse it how you will, make light of it if 
you can, your soul, if not truly believing in 
Jesus Christ, is still the soul in danger. This 
is not matter of mere opinion, or doubtful 
disputation. You will find your Bible con- 
firm my assertion, that, if not believing in 
Jesus Christ for righteousness, your soul is 
in imminent danger of eternal death. You 
must allow me to feel pity for your poor 
soul. Words cannot express what I ought 

1 Psalm cxv. 1. 



BELIEVING. 93 

to feel :— -such a danger impends,, such a 
salvation is proposed, such an eternity is 
balancing ! 

Methinks, I hear a whisper, " Then what 
am I to do ? " "Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ ! " " And how can I do this ? " Try : 
make the effort ! " I have tried, but in vain." 
I fear you were not then in right earnest. 
But try again : make a new effort : lose not 
the golden opportunity ! Dost thou still 
feel inability ? Ah, thou art learning a grand 
secret. Then, fall on thy knees, cry with 
tears to Jesus Christ ; ask him to give, 
nourish, and increase faith : say, Lord, I 
do, I would believe ; " help thou mine un- 
belief!" 1 

But another does believe. Surely I am 
addressing some who are true believers. 
Happy are ye ! Blessed is that mother's 
child, who truly believes unto righteous- 
ness. From such I call for praise to God. 
I call thee, my fellow-believer, to know and 
own thy happy state : — no harsh exhorta- 
tion that., Thou belie vest in Jesus Christ for 

l Mark ix. 24. 



94 



THE SOUL 



righteousness ; — then, for his sake, thy sins 
and iniquities, though many and great, are 
freely forgiven, thou art accounted righte- 
ous, God has fully acquitted thee from ail 
charges of the law, and adopted thee into 
the family of his dear children : thou mayest 
have peace in thine own conscience : angels 
have rejoiced over thee : all the faithful on 
earth hail thee as a brother in the Lord : 
Jesus himself sees in thee of the travail of 
his soul, and is satisfied : the Holy Spirit 
has chosen thy heart for his holy temple, 
his peaceful abode, his place of manifesting 
more and more of the glory of God, and 
the beauty of holiness. O thou believing 
penitent, thrice happy is thy portion ! Whe- 
ther thou art rich or poor in this world, 
matters little; — whether thou art going 
home to a splendid mansion, or a lowly cot- 
tage ; — whether about to repose this night 
on a bed of down, or on a heap of straw ; 
— whether young or old, healthy or sickly, 
infirm or strong ; — all this is of slight im- 
portance. I see in thee a true believer in 
Christ : — that is thy grand distinction ; — 



BELIEVING. 95 

then I see in thee a child of God, and an 
heir of glory ! 

I was about to add, Go and be thankful ! 
But it is needless. Thy heart, if I under- 
stand a believer's heart, is full of thank- 
fulness. I have no fears that a true believer 
will go hence to abuse this blessed doctrine. 
The hypocrite may ; the false professor per- 
haps will : but thou, the true believer, wilt 
say with abhorrence, " God forbid ! how 
shall we that are dead to sin, live any 
longer therein V l All I am and all I have, 
I owe to Christ. I am not my own. I am 
bought with a price. I must glorify God 
with my body and my spirit, which are his. 
" Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable 
gift ! " 2 

1 Rom. vi. 2. 2 2 Cor. ix. 15, 



SERMON IV. 



THE SOUL IN CONFLICT. 



ROMANS VII. 22—25. 

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man : 
But I see another law in my members, warring against 
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to 
the law of sin which is in my members. wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

How wonderful a thing, my brethren, is 
the soul of man ; — by first creation, of kin- 
dred with the holy angels and with God ; 
by the fall, debased in fleshly lusts and vile 
affections ! In what danger once, through 
original and actual sin ; and yet, for a long 
time, as insensible of danger, as the child 
sleeping on the edge of the precipice ! 



IN CONFLICT. 97 

Brought at length, in a mysterious way, to 
repent and to acquiesce in the wondrous plan 
of salvation ; made, through grace, a true 
believer in the meritorious righteousness and 
death of Jesus Christ, and a real partaker- 
of the glorious privileges procured for sin- 
ners by his mediation ; — there, arrived at 
that point, the soul, we might have thought, 
will know no more such strange vicissitudes; 
all henceforth will be uniform joy and peace ; 
the vessel, having weathered such a storm, 
will sail on in smooth waters, till she reaches 
the wished-for haven. 

But, my brethren, the case is not so. If 
you have indeed entered, by actual experi- 
ence, on the former stages of the soul's 
history ; if yours, which once was the soul 
in danger, has also been the soul repent- 
ing, and the soul believing ; then, you 
must not shrink from our present subject, 
for, either now or hereafter, you must meet 
it in experience, and grapple with it in the 
Christian warfare ; — yours must be the soul 
in conflict. And that is our present sub- 
ject ; and a difficult subject it is. It will 



98 THE SOUL 

require all your attention, and all your 
prayers, to enable you to understand a sub- 
ject, which so enters into the interior of 
the spiritual life. I confess I should despair 
of making it plain to any mind, did I not 
hope that the God of all grace will give us 
his kind, effectual aid, and enable us to 
understand spiritual things. 

The words of the apostle, in our text, 
strikingly describe to us the soul in conflict. 
Consider, 

I. The conflict itself. 1 

II. The anxious cry for deliverance. 2 

III. The deliverance found. 3 

I. The conflict itself is thus described by 
the apostle, ver. 22, 23 : " For I delight in 
the law of God after the inward man : But 
I see another law in my members, warring 
against the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin which is 
in my members." 

The true believer is a new creature. It 
is through the Holy Spirit deeply convinc- 
ing of sin, leading the burdened soul to 
Jesus Christ for pardon, and so first im- 

1 Rom. vii. 22, 23. 2 R om . v ii. 24. 3 Rom. vii. 25. 



IN CONFLICT. 99 

planting and then nourishing true faith ;— 
it is only thus that any man with the heart 
believeth unto righteousness. And in this 
process, the Holy Spirit infuses a cordial 
hatred of sin. and a genuine desire after 
holiness, so that faith worketh by love, 1 the 
love of Christ constraineth 2 all who believe 
in him for justification. 

And now, the believer has new views, 
new pleasures, and new pursuits. He has 
far other thoughts of God than once ; the 
world's vanities have lost their charm ; he 
lives to a new object, even to the glory of 
his God and Saviour, an object which once 
had no place in his concern. And whence 
this change ? Is it through his own wis- 
dom and strength, or through man's per- 
suasion and influence ? It is, brethren, 
only through the power and grace of the 
Holy Spirit. He only can have softened 
the heart once hard as adamant, subdued 
the spirit once so proud and self-willed, 
turned the current of the affections once 
following the course of this world, and have 

1 Gal. v. 6. 2 2 Cor. v. 14. 



100 THE SOUL 

produced this grand change in the whole 
character and life. The Scripture calls it 
a regeneration, and so it is, for there is a new 
nature, a new heart, a new spirit, and a new 
life. The Scripture calls it an awakening 
from sleep, 1 a spiritual resurrection, 2 the 
being quickened when dead in trespasses and 
sins ; 3 and although these expressions are 
the strongest which language can supply, 
they are not too strong to describe the grand 
reality of what takes place, when any of 
your souls are brought out of ignorance, 
worldliness, vanity, and a sinful course, into 
penitence, faith, love to God, adoption into 
his family, and the animating desire to live 
to his glory. If any of you understand it 
not, it is high time ye did, " Ye must be born 
again" 4 

Thus, the true believer is a regenerate 
person. The apostle describes the new cha- 
racter of a child of God, when he says of 
himself, " I delight in the law of God after 
the inward man." That description suits 

, 1 Cor. sv. 34. 2 Eph. v. 14. 3 Eph.ii. 1 ; Col. ii. 13. 

-* John iii. 7. 



IN CONFLICT. 101 

no unregenerate person. The law of God 
is so holy, spiritual, and good, and so 
opposed to the bias of fallen man's corrup- 
tions, that the natural man cannot look up 
to the heart-searching God, and say, with 
sincerity and truth, " I delight in thy law, 
O God, after the inward man." On the 
contrary, he heartily hates that law, wishes 
it were less holy, or even that there were 
no law of God at all. Is it not so ? When 
in your ungodly state, was there not a de- 
sire that the law of God did not thwart 
you, that there were no account to be given 
hereafter, that you might be left to live as 
you list ? But, if there were no law, there 
were no God. For the law is the copy of 
God's will : if God is, he must have a will ; 
if he is holy^ his will, and therefore his law, 
must be holy. Perhaps, you thought it not, 
but in fact you used to wish, either that 
there were no God, or that he were an un- 
holy being. Oh, what an atheist's wish in 
the former case ! What a heathen's wish 
in the latter ! In either case, how full of 
ignorance, presumption, and guilt ! May 

K 3 



102 THE SOUL 

God, who knew it, forgive thee, for Christ's 
sake, that thought of thy heart ! 

This then, I maintain, that although 
there is in all men a natural conscience, 
which confesses a distinction between good 
and evil ; although there is in virtue a ma- 
jesty, which often commands the respect 
even of the vicious ; yet there is nothing in 
an unregenerate soul, which corresponds 
with this principle of delighting in the law 
of God after the inward man. No, brethren, 
no : the charmer may charm never so 
wisely, but in vain ; the minstrel may exert 
his utmost skill, and pour forth strains sweet 
as the melodies of heaven, but there is no 
chord which vibrates to his touch, when he 
appeals to sinners, dead in trespesses and 
sins, in praise of the beauty of holiness and 
the loveliness of spiritual religion. Listen, 
for instance, to the sweet singer of Israel, 
and see whether any carnal heart rejoices 
to echo his sentiments : " I will delight my- 
self in thy statutes." L " Thy testimonies 
are my delight and my counsellors." 2 "I 

1 Psalm cxix. 16. 2 Psalm cxix. 24. 



IN CONFLICT. 103 

will delight myself in thy commandments, 
which I have loved." l " The law of thy 
mouth is better unto me than thousands of 
gold and silver." 2 " O how I love thy law ! 
it is my meditation all the day." 3 "I hate 
vain thoughts : but thy law do I love." 4 
" Thy word is very pure : therefore thy ser- 
vant loveth it." 5 The whole, in fact, of 
the 119th Psalm will furnish an invaluable 
test for self-examination on the question, 
Am I a true believer ? am I a child of God ? 
Job also speaks of his delight in the law of 
God : " I have esteemed the words of his 
mouth more than my necessary food." 6 In 
Isaiah, God himself thus characterizes his 
believing people : " Hearken unto me, ye 
that know righteousness, the people in whose 
heart is my law." 7 

The truth is, in working into the heart a 
godly sorrow for sin, and a lively faith in 
Christ, as the only atonement for sin, and 
the Lord our righteousness, the Holy Spirit 
gives such a sense of the evil and malignity 

1 Psalm cxix. 47. 2 Psalm cxix. 72. 3 Psalm cxix. 97. 
4 Psalm cxix. 113. 3 Psalm cxix. 140. 6 Job xxiii. 12. 
7 Isaiah li. 7. 



104 THE SOUL 

of sin, and such a perception of the good- 
ness, holiness, and love of God, with such 
a constraining love to Christ, for having 
loved us even unto death, that, henceforth, 
a hatred of all sin, with a love to all holi- 
ness, springs up in every believing soul. 
And now, the light of holiness and truth is 
found to suit the renewed mind, just as the 
light of day suits the natural eye. Now, 
also, mere outward decency of conduct does 
not satisfy ; a partial reformation is felt to 
be insufficient ; the inward man longs after 
holiness, the hidden man of the heart de- 
lights itself in the law of God, the main- 
spring within of all that is lovely and of good 
report, is touched by a divine hand. 

If there were no other principle left, and 
if none of the old leaven continued to work, 
the whole man would be entirely sanctified ; 
men on earth would be as the angels in 
heaven ; every individual believer would be 
completely, what he now is but partially, 
a living temple to the living God, filled with 
his glory, ever fervent with praise, radiant 
with the beauty of holiness. 



IN CONFLICT. 105 

"But/* says the apostle — and his expe- 
rience was that of a true believer, if there 
ever was one on earth, — " i" see another 
law in my members, warring against the law 
of my mind, and bringing me into captivity 
to the law of sin which is in my members" 
Here, you perceive, are some remains 
of the old, corrupt nature, lingering in 
the believer, and fearfully harassing his 
soul. 

The apostle calls it " another law" for 
indeed it is another, as contrary to the law 
of God, written in the believer's heart, as 
darkness is to light, hell to heaven. It has 
another author, and comes from another 
source. The principle of delighting in 
holiness comes from God the Father, 
through Christ's mediation, by the opera- 
tion of his new-creating Spirit. The law 
of sin comes from our connexion with 
fallen Adam, and is worked upon by the 
evil spirit. It is also another law in its 
effects. The new principle produces peace, 
satisfaction, cheerfulness, delight ; the ten- 
dency of the old principle is to produce 
discomfort, remorse, shame, and death. 



106 THE SOUL 

The apostle also calls it "a law in my 
members? because the law of sin employs 
the bodily members as its instruments, and 
through them peculiarly tempts. Thus, 
in chapter vi. 13 : " Neither yield ye your 
members as instruments of unrighteousness 
unto sin : but yield yourselves unto God, as 
those that are alive from the dead, and your 
members as instruments of righteousness 
unto God." So in verse 19 of the same 
chapter : " I speak after the manner of men 
because of the infirmity of your flesh : for 
as ye have yielded your members servants 
to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity ; 
even so now yield your members servants 
to righteousness unto holiness." These ex- 
hortations every true believer desires to 
obey ; otherwise, he would not delight in 
the law of God after the inward man. And 
yet he finds another law in his m ambers, 
warring against the law of his mind. The 
old, corrupt, carnal nature, which once 
ruled the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, 
and led him its willing slave, still lingers in 
the bodily members, works on the animal 
nature, and has influence with the appetites 



IN CONFLICT. 107 

and passions, and thus tempts the soul, 
which, being as yet only partially renewed, 
is too ready to listen to the tempter. And 
yet this must not be : the soul's better prin- 
ciples forbid: — then there must be strife 
and conflict. 

And this the apostle calls a war. The 
term is most expressive. It is the old 
nature at war with the new,— the flesh with 
the spirit, the law in the members with the 
law in the mind. As in other wars, so in 
this, there is a declaration of war. When 
you become a true believer, and yield your- 
self unto God, in so doing, you formally 
declare war against sin in all its forms ; and 
sin, at the same time, declares war against 
you. Just as the Roman ambassador at 
Carthage, before the second Punic war, told 
the senate, " We bring you war and peace ; 
take which you please." l So we are ambas- 
sadors for God, and have to offer you war 
or peace, — war ^ith sin, and peace with 
God ; or war with God, and peace, if so it 
may be called, with sin. Take which you 
please ! 

1 Liv. 1. 21, c. 18. 






108 THE SOUL 

War then against sin is declared by every 
faithful Christian among you. And lo ! 
as in other wars, allies hasten to range 
themselves on either side. On the side of 
the law in the members, are the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. The world says, " I 
will bring pomps and vanities to allure, 
hosts of dangers to deter, honours to dazzle ; 
I will command multitudes to countenance 
the law of sin by their example. " Come on, 
comrades," says the world, "let us fight 
merrily against saintliness ; I will furnish 
the gold and the silver, which are the very 
sinews of war : pleasure and gaiety are with 
us ; while the world standeth, I will never 
forsake thee, with whom I have been in 
alliance ever since the days of Adam." 

The flesh also says to the law of sin, 
" Why, surely you and I are old friends ; 
you, the members, are my own by birth- 
right ever since original sin was introduced. 
I will join the fray. I will supply lusts, 
feed appetite, nourish sensuality, and so 
keep the struggle alive ! we will fight des- 
perately ; if you, the law of sin, are van- 



IN CONFLICT. 109 

quished, I shall be mortified indeed ; if you 
conquer, I triumph." 

The devil needs no invitation to bring 
him to take part in the contest. "I shall 
lose my prey !" he says ; and presently he 
comes with all the wiles and stratagems of 
a crafty general. Sometimes he bids the 
law in the members feign defeat, only to 
have time to rally forces. Now and then, 
he patches up a hollow peace, only to 
throw the inward man off his guard. When 
forced to open fight, which he does not 
love, — for with all his might and all his 
blustering, he is a coward, 1 — then, he aids 
with fiery darts and panic fears ; if he can 
reach the soul in an unguarded point, he 
would gladly slay it. Oh, what a confe- 
deracy, brethren, is formed against every 
faithful soul ! We are called to wrestle not 
merely against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against 
spiritual wickedness in high places. 2 

1 James iv. 7. " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 

2 Eph. vi. 12. 

L 



110 THE SOUL 

But are there no allies for the inward 
man ? Yes : all true believers on earth are 
with your soul in this holy conflict. Their 
prayers, examples, sympathies, are all with 
you. The redeemed spirits in glory hear 
with joy of your repentance, and with re- 
newed joy of your perseverance amid many 
a great fight of afflictions. The holy an- 
gels look on with affectionate interest ; they 
love, in ways unseen by mortal eye, to 
come at their Lord's bidding, and minister 
to them who shall be heirs of salvation. 1 
Jesus himself, the Captain of our salvation, 
leads you on in this glorious warfare. His 
example speaks, his voice animates ; his 
Spirit enters your hearts to sustain, revive, 
encourage ; he points to the blood-stained 
banner of his cross ; he shows its motto, in 
effect the same with that, seen — whether 
with the bodily or mental eye, I say not — 
by Constantine of old : fS Through this cross 
thou shalt conquer;" 2 yea, he promises, 
that you shall be more than conquerors 
through himself who has loved you. His 

1 Heb. i. 14. 2 "In hoc si«rno yinces." 



IN CONFLICT. Ill 

Divine Father and the Holy Spirit are also 
your soul's allies ; the Father, to smile en- 
couragement upon his agitated child; the 
Holy Spirit, to strengthen with might in 
the inner man. Believers, were you alarmed 
at the array of foes confederated against 
your souls ? Were you ready to say with 
the servant of Elisha, " Alas ! my master, 
how shall we do ? " Open now the eyes of 
faith : behold the mountain full of horses 
and chariots of fire round about you. " Fear 
not ; for they that be with us are more than 
they that be with them." * p 

Do you want armour ? It is amply sup- 
plied by the Lord of Hosts. You have it 
all ready for use, on the right hand and on 
the left, armour both for offensive and de- 
fensive warfare. You have the girdle of 
truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the 
greaves of the preparation of the gospel of 
peace : you have the shield of faith, the 
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the 
Spirit, which is the word of God. 2 

Such, then, are the allies on both sides, 

1 2 Kings vi. 16. 2 Eph. vi. 14, 1/. 



112 THE SOUL 

such the foes arranged against each other. 
And thus the strife begins. The battle- 
field is the world. The day of battle is 
every day in which you live up to your 
Christian principles. The war you wage 
against sin is to terminate only with this 
life ; when you draw the sword, you are to 
fling away the scabbard. What conflicts 
ensue! Both sides fight desperately, for 
existence, for liberty, for mastery. Which 
shall reign over you? — there is the question. 
The apostle says that he had sometimes 
to see the worse cause partially triumphant. 
I see it, he says, "bringing me into cap- 
tivity to the law of sin which is in my mem- 
bers." This will invariably be the case, if 
your inward man faints, desponds, or at all 
yields, so that you begin to give way to vain 
confidence, worldliness, or lust. Then you 
will be, so far, again brought into captivity 
to the law of sin, which is in your members. 
And then, expect no clemency from your 
victor, sin ; it will bind you as a slave, and 
drag you at its chariot wheels ; it will ex- 
pose you to the scoff of enemies, and the 



IN CONFLICT. 113 

pity of friends ; it will hurry you on toward 
death. 

Brethren, you see the conflict. You be- 
hold the scales of victory inclining in favour 
of the law of sin. The case is one of real 
danger. The inward man is yielding ; your 
soul, which had tasted that the Lord is 
gracious, is returning to folly ; some fleshly 
lust is revived ; some sinful temper is again 
indulged ; — and, although God's promises 
are true, faithful, immutable ; yet, in that 
position of things, your interest in them is 
obscured : your soul is, to all human ap- 
pearances, becoming once again the soul 
in danger. If I could tell you that there 
is then no danger, I should be unfaithful 
to your soul. No danger, when a believer 
is returning to sin ! It was not thus that 
Nathan comforted David. This was not 
the meaning of Christ looking upon Peter. 
Such was not the language of God by 
Ezekiel : u When a righteous man turneth 
away from his righteousness, and committeth 
iniquity, and dieth in them ; for his iniquity 

L 3 



114 THE SOUL 

that he hath done shall he die." 1 No dan- 
ger in backsliding from God ! Oh, where 
do men pick up this Antinomian notion ? 
Not surely from our text. 

For, come to our Second part, and hear the 
anxious cry for deliverance. "0 wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death?" I hardly know a 
more sorrowful cry than that. The Saviour's 
cry seems indeed more sorrowful ; " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me?" 2 And yet I hardly know. "My God, 
my God," expresses some sense of sonship, 
some confidence of filial love, even in that 
hour of darkness and desertion. But the 
apostle's words seem all sorrow, the language 
of a heart quite full of lamentation, and 
mourning, and woe. Only hear them again, 
and judge ; " O wretched man that I am ! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death ? " This last expression is most re- 
markable. The allusion is almost too pain- 
ful for explanation. Yet, if its explanation 
may lead us to loathe and abhor sin, we 

1 Ezek. xviii. 26. 2 Matt, xxvii. 46. 



IN CONFLICT. 115 

must not yield to a false delicacy. It is 
said that ancient tyrants, in their inhuman 
cruelty, sometimes condemned offenders to 
have a dead body tied to them, and to 
carry this loathsome object about with 
them, Can any thing more horrible be 
imagined ? Yet such is sin working in our 
members ! It is a vile and disgusting thing 
to us ; if we are believers, it has received 
its death-blow : " knowing this, that our 
old man is crucified with Christ, that the 
body of sin might be destroyed, that hence- 
forth we should not serve sin." 1 Thus the 
body of sin, mortified by the Spirit of God 
and the cross of Christ, is henceforth a 
body of death, vile, loathsome, abominable ; 
and yet it cleaves to us, hangs about us, 
impedes our progress, mars our comfort, 
torments, harasses, and grieves. Again 
and again we are forced to cry out, " O 
wretched man that I am ! who shall deViver 
me from the body of this death ? " 

Yes : who indeed shall deliver us ? we 
cannot deliver ourselves ; for the enemy is 
part and portion of ourselves. Anselm, 

1 Rom. vi. 6. 



116 THE SOUL 

one of the Fathers of the church, frames 
this excellent petition on this very text : 
(C Lord, deliver me from this wretched man, 
myself!" 1 Neither can our fellow-men 
deliver us ; the ungodly are all serving the 
law of sin, the very foe with whom we have 
to fight. Every one of the faithful has a 
similar body of death, wherewith to struggle 
for himself. He must first be the physician 
to heal himself. 

But, my fellow-soldiers in this warfare, 
you must find a deliverer or perish. Your 
former believing will not serve, unless you 
still have one to believe in, whose power 
and love are equal to this emergency. Your 
former victories are lost, if you are van- 
quished now. That body of sin will revive 
to strength, and will rise and slay you, un- 
less a deliverer can be found for you. Oh, 
is there one ? who and where is he ? who 
shall deliver me ? It is the cry of one pant- 
ing for breath, in the midst of conflict, 
almost overcome, looking this way and that 
for a deliverer. 

Brethren, I know of no human philoso- 

1 Domine, libera me a misero isto homine meipso. 



IN CONFLICT. ] 1 7 

phy, which can give effectual aid at such a 
crisis. Philosophers never uuderstood this 
conflict. They talk indeed of a strife and 
opposition within the breast of man. A 
heathen poet could say, " I see and approve 
of what is better, I follow what is worse." l 
And many have confounded this with the 
Christian conflict. But it is not the same. 
The inward opposition, which the unrege- 
nerate feel, is between worldly prudence 
and appetite, between one lust and another, 
between ambition and sensuality, between 
the judgment and the inclination. Hence 
even Herod felt a struggle between his fear 
of men bidding him observe his rash oath 
and behead John, and his natural sense of 
justice bidding him forbear the murderous 
deed. Hence Pilate had a struggle between 
his wish to release Jesus, and his cowardice 
prompting him to give him up to the Jews. 
Hence Felix trembled, and yet delayed 
repentance. All this is not the Christian's 
conflict. It wants this important mark — 
In the believer, the conflict is between grace 

1 Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor. 



118 THE SOUL 

and sin, between the regenerate and the 
unregenerate nature, between the new and 
the old man. In him the inward man sides 
with God and holiness. In the unregene- 
rate, the inward man sides with the old 
man, and the conflict is between different 
natural principles which jar and quarrel with 
each other ; just as bad men, living in the 
same house or neighbourhood, all agree in 
hating God and persecuting righteousness, 
and yet continually fall out and fight with 
each other. The regenerate, in short, fears 
above all things to return to sin : the unre- 
generate secretly means it, and soon con- 
trives it. 

This distinction, brethren, is most impor- 
tant. The unconverted often abuse our 
present subject, and mistake the compunc- 
tions, which they feel in the morning, on 
account of the follies, I mean, the sins of 
the last night, for the conflict which St. 
Paul describes between the flesh and the 
spirit. But St. Paul meant no such thing. 
St. Paul would have plainly told them, in 
his faithful way, " You are all flesh, altoge- 



IN CONFLICT. 119 

ther carnal, quite destitute of the Spirit. 
The works of the flesh are manifest ; l - — 
and those are your works. Your conflict, 
at best, is only between natural conscience 
and sensual appetite. You are sorry, but 
not with a godly sorrow. You are afraid 
of the world knowing it, or of its ruining 
your health, character, property : you do 
not loathe your sin as a vile thing before 
God, nor yourself for having committed it. 
You, the drunkard, will be at your cups 
before night. You, the unclean person, will 
return again to your old practices. You, 
the slanderer, will set out again on your 
old round with some new tale of malice. 
You, the bad child, so very sorry when 
detected, and so full of promises of never 
doing so again, have no real intention of 
becoming the dutiful, obedient, good child. 
None among you, all ye unregenerate peo- 
ple, really desire to be delivered from your 
sin." 

But thou, truly wretched man, thou be- 
liever, with thy soul in' conflict, thy contest 

l Gal. r. 19. 



120 THE SOUL 

is between that new heart which loves God, 
and that old nature which would have thee 
return to sin, between indwelling grace and 
indwelling corruption. Thou hast seen the 
abominable nature of sin, and therefore thou 
loathest it. And to find it still with thee, 
working to regain dominion ; — this makes 
thee cry with a bitter, piercing, sorrowful 
cry, " O wretched man that I am ! z&ho shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ? " 

III. But see, a deliverer appears ! — 
" Wretched man," he cries, " I bring thee 
good tidings." Tempted believer, thy own 
heart will recognize his voice. " / thank 
God? cries the apostle, " through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." 

Jesus Christ is indeed a deliverer at such 
a time. He left you to yourself for a little, 
to show you your own weakness, to humble 
all spiritual pride, to make you feel that if 
the best of saints without him is liable to 
relapse into the worst of sins, how much 
more one who is less than the least of all 
saints. And then, when your treadings had 
well nigh slipped, he comes, in answer to 



IN CONFLICT. 121 

your earnest cry, and brings his fulness of 
grace and strength to bear upon your case 
of weakness and distress. Oh, it is delight- 
ful to realize his help at such an hour. 
You cried, " Who shall deliver me V Your 
question is answered. " I will deliver thee. 
Am I not Jesus, the Saviour and deliverer, 
by office and choice, by promise and profes- 
sion? Am I not Christ, the anointed of 
God to guide, save, and defend ? am I not 
the Lord, your Lord and your God ? is any 
thing too hard, any case too difficult, any 
foe too mighty for the Lord ?" 

1. Jesus Christ succours at such times 
commonly by his word and Spirit. He thus 
revives faith, strengthens hope, reanimates 
the inward man, emboldens the faint heart 
anew, and nerves the weary hand with fresh 
courage. It is thus he enables you in con- 
flict to put forth new vigour, and to gain 
victories over your corruptions. Christ does 
not comfort by telling you to become care- 
less and presumptuous. He never delivers 
by bidding you to think, It is all of no use. 
But he comforts by his word of forgiveness 



122 THE SOUL 

for what is past, even for all your short- 
comings, faintness, unbelieving doubts, or 
even actual falls. He raises with tender- 
ness and grace : " See, I forgive all ! Behold 
the wounds of thy Captain ; they were 
caused by the blow which would have slain 
thee. My blood has flowed in this warfare. 
For my sake, because I fainted not, the 
King pardons thee. And now, rise with 
new energy; be moved by my example, 
aroused by my voice, animated by my Spirit. 
Go, renew the fight! I will be with thee. 
Victory shall be thine !" 

2. Christ specially delivers by giving such 
a view of his cross as serves again to mor- 
tify sin, Dear brethren, nothing but that 
will slay corruption. But, if believers indeed, 
he will give you such nearer and more 
affecting views of his cross and passion, of 
his precious death and burial, of his glori- 
ous resurrection and ascension, as shall mor- 
tify the law of sin in your members, enable 
you to die daily unto sin, to be buried with 
Christ by baptism, to rise to righteousness 
and holiness, and to ascend in heart to hea- 



IN CONFLICT, 123 

venly things. Oh, keep but near to Christ 
crucified. Make his cross your trust, your 
plea, your pattern, your glory, and " sin 
shall not have dominion over you !" - 

Lastly, Jesus Christ helps and delivers 
his people in conflict by the nearer prospect 
of the rest of heaven. How often have 
generals animated their soldiers with the 
hope of soon seeing their peaceful homes, 
their fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, all 
anxiously waiting to congratulate them on 
their victory. Think, O tried believers, of 
your eternal home, to which Jesus, your 
Captain, will soon conduct your souls, and 
in due time your bodies also. You have 
a Father there, the most gentle, gracious, 
and affectionate, that ever bore that name 
of love. You have brothers there and sis- 
ters also, even all that ever lived who, 
through grace, repented of sin, believed in 
Christ, and fought the good fight. You 
have friends there, whom you have never 
seen in the flesh, but who long to see you 
with them in that pleasant land. And there, 

1 Rom. vi. 14o 



124 THE SOUL 

they are all so loving, so pure, so gentle, 
and so gracious ; they are all of such kin- 
dred minds and congenial spirits ; they will 
all welcome you so gladly, telling you their 
gracious history, and listening to yours, and 
adoring with you your common Saviour ;— 
that the very thought of that happy meet- 
ing, in that land of peace, should reanimate 
the most fainting among you, to go on pray- 
ing, believing, wrestling, with holy persever- 
ance, till his or her turn to enter into rest 
shall in due order come. 

And then, no more conflict ! Ye angels, 
write that upon the jasper walls ! Spirits 
of the just made perfect, chaunt that with 
your golden harps! Ye that are to wear 
garments made white in the blood of the 
Lamb, and to carry palm-branches in your 
hand, anticipate that song now. There 
shall be no more conflict ! There is no war 
in heaven now ! Flesh and blood, in their 
present state, shall not enter there ! No 
law in the members shall militate against 
the law of the mind there ! No evil world, 
no crafty tempter there ! Blessed, my bre- 



IN CONFLICT. 125 

thren, whatever our selfish, ignorant minds 
may sometimes object, thrice "blessed are 
the dead, which die in the Lord." l 

My friends, before we separate, I should 
have liked to have asked of every one of 
you one question ; but I feel that God only 
can put that question aright : — Have you 
understood our subject? Has yours ever 
been the soul in conflict F 

I have endeavoured to show the unrege- 
nerate the great distinction between their 
inward struggles with different natural prin- 
ciples, and the conflict in the believer be- 
twixt grace and sin. Have ye understood 
these things ? Sinner, careless hearer, thou 
hast not. It may be, that natural feeling 
prompted thee to pity the apostle forced to 
cry out, " wretched man that I am ! " yet 
if he was wretched in understanding, thou 
art much more wretched in not understand- 
ing this spiritual warfare. The apostle is 
now the happy man. His cry would now 
be, O blessed man that I am! how glori- 
ously has Christ delivered me ! But thou, 

1 Rev. xiv. 13, 
M 3 



126 THE SOUL 

sinner, — nay, stop not thine ears, — thou 
wilt be a wretched man for eternity, except 
thou repentest. Sinner, go and begin. 
Repent with godly sorrow. Go with a peni- 
tent heart to Jesus Christ. Believe with 
the heart unto righteousness. If you would 
not last week, oh, do it now. Next week, 
you may be gone. Seek a new heart and 
a right spirit : act up to your convictions : 
forsake bad companions : give up known 
sin : pray, as you never did before, against 
temptation. Sinner, thus begin ; and I doubt 
not but you will soon have occasion to un- 
derstand what is meant by the soul in 
conflict. 

Believers, you have all understood me. 
You are veterans, or, at least, tiros, in this 
warfare. Will ye not, after this, persevere 
and press forward in the strength of Christ, 
the tiro to become a veteran, the veteran to 
become a conqueror resting in his glory ? 
Oh, be ye thankful. I feel that I have not 
said enough on that word of the apostle's, 
" I thank God ;" — and I cannot. Let your 
gratitude to Christ supply my omissions 



IN CONFLICT. 127 

Were I to speak for hours, I could not 
fully show your cause for thankfulness. Be 
thankful through life for every deliverance 
in conflict and temptation. Be thankful 
in death for such a deliverer from the last 
enemy. Be thankful, throughout eternity, 
to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ! 



SERMON V. 



THE SOUL DEVOTED. 



PHILIPPIANS IV. 13. 

/ can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. 

This seems a great speech for him whom 
we recently heard exclaim, "O wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ? " Yet this our text 
contains a true saying, and has a close con- 
nexion with that distressing cry. For though 
we saw the believer's soul weak, and in 
conflict, we also saw him finding and re- 
joicing in a deliverer, mighty to save, even 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, then, the 
deliverer found ! Behold him come with 



THE SOUL DEVOTED. 129 

his very present help ! Now, O believer, 
what canst thou do ? "I can do all things,'' 
meekly answers the apostle, " through Christ 
which strengthened me." 

Let us, dear brethren, in pursuance of the 
plan of this little course of sermons, hence 
consider, 

I. The soul devoted to all holy service. 

II. The soul's strength for that devot- 
edness. 

For this appears, on the whole, the most 
appropriate of the many topics in relation 
to the soul's history, which still invite our 
consideration. It is, after all, only a general 
sketch, and a mere specimen of that history, 
which can be given within the limits of six 
discourses. At each point, I have endea- 
voured to keep to things essential to be 
understood by every saved soul. Of this 
character is the subject before us. If, 
through God's grace, you are practically ac- 
quainted with our former topics ; if yours, 
which was the soul in danger, has expe- 
rimentally understood repentance, faith, 
conflict, you will proceed, without reluc- 
tance, to understand the devoted service, 



130 THE SOUL 

the full and prompt obedience, the cheerful 
consecration of all your energies to God, to 
which your Saviour calls you! — and this, 
not in your own strength, which is perfect 
weakness, but in and through the supply of 
his own enabling grace. 

And may He, without whom we can do 
nothing, and who, I humbly hope, has been 
with us in considering our former topics, 
mercifully grant that we may both perceive 
and know what things we ought to do, and 
also may have grace and power faithfully to 
fulfil the same ! 

Every true believer in Christ cheerfully 
yields himself unto God, as Christ's pur- 
chased possession, to be henceforth em- 
ployed by God in holy services for his own 
glory. The Scripture often declares this. 
" Ye are not your own. For ye are bought 
with a price : therefore glorify God in your 
body, and in your spirit, which are God's ;" * 
"Whose I am, and whom I serve." 2 "I 
beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the 
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies 

i 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. 2 Acts xxvii. 23. 



DEVOTED. 131 

a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
which is your reasonable service." 1 "Ye 
are Christ's." 2 " Yield yourselves unto 
God." 3 

And this surrender of ourselves to God 
is our bounden duty. If by serving sin, 
vanity, and the world, we had incurred 
great guilt, and were in imminent danger of 
eternal death ; and if Christ voluntarily 
delivered us, at the expense of his own 
sacred blood ; if the Father has manifested 
such wondrous love toward us miserable 
sinners ; if the Holy Spirit] has deigned to 
enter our hearts and apply this great grace; 
then, the least return we can make is to give 
ourselves up to Christ, and cheerfully to 
say, Here I am ! Behold, Lord, the soul 
which thou claimest for thyself. It is in- 
deed utterly unworthy of thy acceptance : 
in itself it is full of guilt, misery, and pollu- 
tion. But thou who didst die for sinners, 
hast called, and I have come to thee to be 
justified through thy merits, and now to 
give myself to thee. Lord, I am thine, for 

1 Rom. xii. 1. 2 i Cor. iii. 23. 3 Rom. vi. 13. 



132 THE SOUL 

thou art mine. Fit and prepare my soul 
for thy service : make me all thou wouldst 
have me to be : use me in what way thou 
wilt : command me to what services thou 
pleasest : do with me, that is, with thy own, 
whatever seemeth thee good ! 

And this our duty is also our privilege. 
For, if we give not ourselves thus to God, 
we still serve sin, Satan, and the world; 
we are still in bondage through fear of 
death ; we are employed in vile work, and 
occupied with mean pursuits. Hence it is 
a privilege to come out from the world, and 
to taste the liberty wherewith the Son of 
God emancipates the soul. It is a joy for 
the heart, after being so long enthralled, to 
find its proper master, "whose service is 
perfect freedom." It is an honour, which 
humbles while it exalts, to be allowed to 
serve the glorious and ever blessed God. 
That he will deign to employ such weak 
and worthless instruments ; that he, who 
could do so well without us, will give us 
work to do for him ; and that he makes us, 
who were once so ill disposed for serving 



DEVOTED. 133 

.him, now quite glad to obey his will : — this 
is a privilege indeed ! For his command- 
ments, brethren, are not grievous when we 
love God. 1 Christ's yoke is easy, for it is 
lined with his own love. " Blessed are they 
that keep his testimonies, and that seek him 
with the whole heart." 2 

Brethren, if believers, you have thus 
given yourself, body, soul, and spirit, to 
Jesus Christ. For with the soul the body 
is to go also. The law in your members 
will oppose, as we saw in our last lecture, 
but the soul, we also saw, is not to yield, 
but to endure conflict, and to cry out for 
deliverance, rather than yield to sin. With 
bad men the body rules the soul : when 
Christ makes any free, the soul regains its 
proper superiority and rules the body. Thus, 
if true believers, you have given the whole 
man to Christ. There has then been a time 
in your history, when you solemnly devoted 
yourself to God. You have often renewed 
that serious act. Young people, if you un- 
derstood what you were about, you did this 

1 1 John v. 3. 2 Psalm cxix. 2. 



134 THE SOUL 

at your Confirmation. Communicants, if 
ye mean what ye say, ye do this anew every 
time ye receive the Lord's Supper. Else, 
what mean our words, " Here we offer and 
present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our 
souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, 
and lively sacrifice unto thee ?" Churchmen, 
if such indeed, ye do this every time you 
join in the General Thanksgiving. For do 
we not pray, " that we may show forth thy 
praise," O our God, " by giving up our- 
selves to thy service ? " Christians, if ye 
have any scriptural right to that honoured 
name, your daily prayers and lives are my 
witnesses, that ye have given yourselves to 
God. 

And now, what are the things to which 
you, thus given to Christ, are or may be 
called ? Look first at the context, verses 
11, 12: "I have learned, in whatsoever 
state I am, therewith to be content. I 
know both how to be abased, and I know 
how to abound : every where, and in all 
things, I am instructed both to be full and 
to be hungry ; both to abound and to suffer 



DEVOTED. 135 

need. I can do all things through Christ 
which strengtheneth me !" 

This,, then, is a primary duty of every 
one who belongs to Christ, to be content 
with the allotments of God's providence, to 
exercise the graces suitable for prosperity 
or adversity. 

It is not superfluous to speak a word on 
this duty. For ours is a discontented world. 
Even professing Christians are too often a 
murmuring, fretful, dissatisfied people. I 
speak not of their complaints of indwelling 
sin, nor of their dissatisfaction with their 
slow progress in divine things. I speak of 
their being too much like the children of 
this world, over anxious for the things of 
time and sense, careful and troubled about 
many things, too often peevish, restless, 
covetous, even as others. 

But, brethren, if genuine believers, it must 
not be so with you. In giving yourselves 
up to Christ, you leave all your outward 
circumstances to his divine will. You then 
seek first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and you depend on him to 



136 THE SOUL 

fulfil his own promise, that all these things^ 
food, raiment, necessaries for this life, shall 
be added unto you. * You will still use dili- 
gence, prudence, activity, in worldly duties ; 
but you will cheerfully leave the measure of 
your worldly prosperity with God. Does 
he prosper you in worldly things ? You 
will know how to abound ; — which is no 
easy thing ; — how to use abundance with 
holy moderation, to be temperate in all 
things, to employ wealth, influence, station, 
not to gratify pride and ostentation, but as 
faithful stewards for Jesus Christ. There 
is, according to the Bible, much cause to 
fear for rich and prosperous Christians/ 
There is such danger, lest riches should be 
turned into golden chains to fetter down 
the soul to earth ; lest they should pamper 
pride, nourish sensuality, and minister to 
the natural selfishness of the heart, that 
it is perhaps a merciful dispensation, that 
the majority of God's people, in every age, 
have been comparatively poor. Yet the 

1 Matt. vi. 33. 2 See Matt. xix. 23, 24 ; Luke xii. 16 ; 
xvi. 19 ; James v. 1 ; Rev. vi. 15 — 17. 



DEVOTED. 137 

rich may learn — Christ can teach them 
— how to abound and to be full, not only 
without sin, but in such a manner as to 
glorify God. The way is simply this. They 
are to consider all they have as belonging 
to Jesus Christ, and therefore to be em- 
ployed, wisely and discreetly, yet cheerfully 
and liberally, in his service. They will still 
provide for themselves and for their families ; 
for Christ tells them to clo so : "If any one 
provide not for his own, and specially for 
those of his own house, he hath denied the 
faith, and is worse than an infidel." 1 But 
they will not make prudence a cloak for 
covetousness : they will be content with a 
moderate provision for themselves and theirs, 
and the remainder will be lent to the Lord, 
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, teach 
the ignorant, relieve distress, and send the 
gospel of Christ throughout a perishing 
world. So also with influence ; prosperity 
commonly gives a man a wider sphere of 
usefulness, and a more commanding position 
for doing good. "Where much is given., 

l 1 Tim. v. 8. 
N 3 



138 THE SOUL 

much will be required. A city set on a hill 
cannot be hid. 1 Prosperous Christians, re- 
ceive the word of exhortation. Your ex- 
ample, words, actions, have a continual bear- 
ing on society. Let them all give a consis- 
tent, grateful testimony for Christ. "Let 
your light so shine before men, that they 
may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father which is in heaven." 2 

But is adversity or poverty your lot ? 
Then, with the apostle, you will know " how 
to be abased, how to be hungry, and suffer 
need," in a manner becoming a Christian. 
You will then resort to no unlawful means 
of supplying your wants. A Christian had 
rather dig than beg, rather beg than defraud, 
rather starve than steal. But more than 
this : no hard thought of God will fill your 
mind ; no pining anxieties will fret your 
spirit. You will think with yourself thus : — 
I certainly have given myself to Christ : it 
seems his will, that I should be poor as to 
this world's goods. Well : be it so ! He 
gives me no worse condition than what he 

1 Matt. v. 14. 2 Matt. v. 16. 



DEVOTED. 139 

took himself. He had not where to lay his 
head, yet he gives me a ]owly cottage, and 
deigns to hallow it with his gracious pre- 
sence. If I know hunger and thirst, so did 
he and his apostles. If I have not the 
benefit of great riches, I, at least, have not 
their responsibility. Though I get on but 
roughly, God helps me forward ; and then, 
the riches of Christ, the bread of life, the 
new wine of consolation, the hope of glory, 
— these are mine for every day's use. The 
poor Christian passes a fine mansion ; he 
need not covet. I have a better mansion 
than that, he may say, " even a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." ' 
Does a splendid equipage roll by ? He need 
not envy. The Lord, who walked with the 
disciples to Emmaus, honours him with his 
converse. He can pray for the rich and 
great, that they also may have fellowship 
with Christ. At another time, trains of ser- 
vants sweep along : — I have more glorious 
attendants ; are not the angels all minister- 
ing spirits, sent forth to minister to them 

1 2 Cor. 7. 1. 



140 THE SOUL 

who shall be heirs of salvation ? l Does one 
pass, clad in gay attire ? My soul, thou 
needest not envy. Hast thou not robes 
made white in the blood of the Lamb, gar- 
ments of praise, a mantle of salvation ? 

And then, if your means be ever so 
scanty, and if you have ever so little of this 
world's goods, you may yet do something 
for Christ with that little. Remember the 
widow's mite. Let not the one talent be 
wrapped in a napkin. Imitate her, of whom 
the Lord said, " She hath done what she 
could." 2 

Brethren, let none of you say or think, 
that, because in lowly condition, you can- 
not serve Christ. It grieves us when the poor 
make their poverty an excuse for irreligion, 
and plead, for instance, the want of clothes, 
as a reason for absence from the house of 
God. It grieves us, because we know that 
they, who so excuse themselves, must be 
strangers in heart to the blessedness of true 
religion. The gospel is meant for all. Its 
influence would make the rich man poor in 

1 Heb. i. 14. 2 Mark xiv. 8. 



DEVOTED. 141 

spirit, and the poor man rich in grace. It 
would come down with you to your lowest 
estate, cheer you in every trouble, walk 
with you all through the valley of humilia- 
tion, and talk so pleasantly with you by 
the way, of Christ, and heaven, and glory, 
as would make you feel " as having nothing, 
and yet possessing all things." 1 

" I can do all things :" — this expression 
thus includes all the virtues and graces suit- 
able for a Christian in prosperity and adver- 
sity. But it includes yet more. The apos- 
tle does not say, I can do these things, but 
I can do all things. 

Christian devotedness surely includes the 
entire renunciation of all sin. Be not de- 
ceived on this point. In giving yourself 
to Christ, you give up every thing which he 
forbids. And you know that he forbids all 
sin. If you had some sin dear to you as a 
right hand, that right hand must be cut off, 
were it your bosom friend, it must be for- 
saken. On this point I would speak with 
all plainness. You cannot retain your sin 

1 2 Cor. vi. 10. 



142 THE SOUL 

and your Saviour. I speak not of sins of 
infirmity: I know that "in many things 
we all offend:" 1 but this I do mean, if a 
believer, in giving yourself to Christ, you 
honestly give up your sins, you renounce 
every false way, a grand change is seen by 
man in your outward life, and God sees in 
your heart a growing abhorrence of all sin. 
Again I say, Be not deceived. Profess what 
he may, no man, still going on in any known 
sin, is a true believer in Christ : no one liv- 
ing in habits of malice, profaneness, false- 
hood, intemperance, uncleanness, fraud, un- 
godliness, is as yet out of danger for his 
soul. " How shall we, that are dead to sin, 
live any longer therein ? " 2 

And with sin, you must give up, what the 
Scripture calls, the love of the world, which 
is closely connected with sin, and cannot be 
cherished without sin. Again I would speak 
with all plainness. Perhaps the greatest 
danger for professing Christians, in the pre- 
sent day, is from the love of the world. 
Yet how express is Scripture ! I marvel at 

1 James iii. 2. 2 Rom. vi. 2. 



DEVOTED. 1 43 

the Christian who can despise its warning, 
or jest with such words as these : " Love not 
the world, neither the things that are in the 
world. If any man love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him." 1 Do any ask 
what is meant ? The same Scripture ex- 
plains : " For all that is in the world, the 
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, 
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, 
but is of the world." 2 If, then, any of you 
are chiefly engrossed with the things of 
time and sense ; if sensuality, ambition, 
pride, are your ruling principles ; if your 
thoughts turn, as on a pivot, round the 
desire of worldly pleasure, profit, fame ; 
then I dare not speak to you as to true 
believers in Christ ; you are not acting on 
the instructions of your childhood, that you 
" should renounce the pomps and vanities 
of this wicked world." What mean ye, O 
worldly-minded professors ? how r long halt 
ye between two opinions ? When mean ye 
to obey the exhortation, " Come out from 
among them, and be ye separate, saith the 

1 John ii. 15. 2 i John ii. 16. 



144 THE SOUL 

Lord ?" ' How do ye interpret the apostle's 
meaning, where he says, " God forbid that I 
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified 
unto me, and I unto the world ? " 2 

Supposing then sin and the world to be 
cheerfully given up, as they will be by every 
true believer amongst us, much still remains 
to make up the devoted Christian. It is 
not enough to be a negative sort of a cha- 
racter, to have done no one any great 
harm, to be not as other men are, in gross 
sin ; you are to " do good unto all men, 
especially unto them of the household of 
faith." 3 Your walk through life is to be 
that of a benefactor scattering blessings. 
Your footsteps are to follow Him " who went 
about doing good." 4 All your talents, ener- 
gies, influence, efforts, are to tend to one 
object, and to be consecrated to one cause* 

If really devoted to Christ, we shall refuse 
no service, however difficult and self-deny- 
ing, to which he plainly calls. When he 

I 2 Cor. vi. 17. 2 Gal vi. 14. 3 Gal. vi. 10. 

4 Acts x. 38. 



DEVOTED. 145 

says, "Who will go for us ? " l Every faithful 
soul will spring forward and say, " Here am 
I, send me." ] I am aware, brethren, of the 
low state of many professing Christians in 
regard to self-denial. But our standard is 
the Bible. When Christ says, Do this ; you, 
if a true believer, will go and do it. If he 
calls for your testimony, in any way ; if he 
asks you to go a journey, to pay a visit, to 
labour in a society, to endure hardship, 
scorn, imprisonment, for his sake, you will 
not, you cannot find it in your heart to 
refuse him anything. 

Brethren, I know not whether ye are 
rising with our subject. If ye are, I cannot 
but look on you with intense interest. 
Christ may call some of you to no common 
services. Who can tell, but this congrega- 
tion may be honoured to furnish a devoted 
missionary, a faithful minister, or, if need 
should arise, a confessor, or a martyr ? At 
all events, who of you is not called to 
become the faithful, consistent Christian ? 
Then, what trials, temptations, afflictions may 

1 Isaiah vi. 8. 
o 



146 THE SOUL 

await some ! what a world for us all to over- 
come ! what an enemy to resist ! what cor- 
ruptions to mortify ! Already, brethren, I 
feel anxious to ask, Can ye do all these 
things ? 

And yet, these are not all the things to 
which every devoted Christian is called. I 
feel my inability to do justice to my subject. 
I have not described the spiritual mind, the 
heavenly affections, the fervent zeal, the 
holy courage, the gentleness, the meekness, 
the humility, which Christ looks for in each 
of you. I am ashamed of my poor account 
of the work of faith, and the labour of 
love, to which you are called. How little 
have I said to explain that " holiness, with- 
out which no man shall see the Lord!" 1 
Brethren, the devoted Christian is aiming 
to become like God. He is ". born of God," 2 
" transformed by the renewing of his mind," 3 
" made a partaker of the divine nature." 4 — 
He daily tries to obey the precept, " Be ye 
perfect, even as your Father which is in 

1 Heb. xii. 14. 2 i j hn iii. 9. 3 R om . xii. 2. 

4 2 Pet. i. 4. 



DEVOTED. 147 

heaven is perfect." l He is daily " giving all 
diligence to add to his faith virtue ; and to 
virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge tem- 
perance ; and to temperance patience ; and 
to patience godliness ; and to godliness bro- 
therly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness 
charity/' 2 "Finally, brethren, whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are hon- 
est, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; 
if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise," you, if the devoted Christian, will 
" think on these things/' 3 

But, brethren, I must leave this sketch 
of Christian devotedness imperfect and in- 
complete. It would require the tongue of 
an angel, or the pen of a ready writer, to do 
it justice. Your own life must furnish a 
better explanation. But now the thought 
presses, Is all this practicable ? how can I 
do all these and other like things ? 

II. "/ can do all things through Christ 
which strengthened me :" — here is the se- 
cret of the believer's strength.- By nature 

1 Matt. v. 48. 2 2 Pet. i. 5, 7. 3 Phil. iv. 8. 



148 THE SOUL 

he is quite like other men ; — as depraved in 
heart, as corrupt in spirit, as earthly in 
mind, as sinful, feeble, impotent to what is 
good, as they are. He repents, he believes, 
he is justified; but all this is brought to 
pass, not by his own wisdom or power, but 
by the grace of God blessing the instru- 
ments and means employed. Christ is " ex- 
alted as a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance." 1 "By grace are ye saved, 
through faith ; and that not of yourselves : 
it is the gift of God." 2 It is through the 
same grace making the soul willing in the 
day of Christ's power, that the believer so 
cheerfully yields himself to God, and be- 
comes devoted to his service. But even 
then, his strength for the greatest and also 
for the least spiritual or acceptable service 
is in Jesus Christ, not in himself, lest any 
man should boast. "Without me," says 
Christ, " ye can do nothing" 3 "I can do 
all things" responds the Christion, " through 
Christ which strengthened me /" 

And how does Christ strengthen his peo- 
ple for devoted service ? 

l Acts v. 31. 2 Eph. ii. 8. 3 John xv. 5. 



DEVOTED. 1 49 

1. By the energetic motive of his cross: 
(S The love of Christ constraineth us ; be- 
cause we thus judge, that if one died for 
all, then were all dead : and that he died 
for all, that they which live should not 
henceforth live unto themselves, but unto 
him which died for them, and rose again." l 
What strength, brethren, and force in that 
motive ! What heart can resist it ? You 
were dead ; Christ died for you : — read 
there, with close application to yourselves, 
the guilt of sin, the value of the soul, the 
love of God, the grace of Christ. In that 
fact, study the doctrines of the fall, of ori- 
ginal and personal sin, of redemption through 
the blood of Christ, of justification through 
faith in him, of sanctification through his 
Spirit. In those doctrines, read your obli- 
gations to God, and your daily duties. And 
then, think much of the need to others of 
the same Saviour ; — all have sinned, all were 
dead, all must come to Christ or perish. Will 
ye not tell them all ye can of the worth of the 
cross of Christ ? will ye not let that motive 

* 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 
O 3 



150 THE SOUL 

have its due and proper influence on your 
hearts ? Then I ask no more. That motive, 
rightly applied, will make every one of you 
the devoted Christian. 

2. For it is not by a motive alone, how- 
ever mighty, that the Saviour endues the 
soul with much strength. The lever must 
be moved by a mighty power. Christ also 
strengthened, through the Holy Spirit ap- 
plying the motive of his cross to the be- 
liever's soul. Others can hear of that cross, 
and go away and live as much to them- 
selves, the world, and sin, as before. But 
when God the Holy Spirit touches the 
heart and conscience with Divine power, 
deeply convinces of sin, beats down every 
high thought, shows the man to himself a 
poor, lost, guilty sinner : and then takes of 
the things of Jesus, and shows them unto 
him, opening the eyes of his mind to see, 
and inclining his heart to receive the truth 
as it is in Jesus : when he makes known to 
the sinner, now a penitent believer, the free- 
ness and fulness of the salvation, in which 
he is now personally interested : then it is 



DEVOTED. 151 

that the heart owns the Saviour's claims, 
and the man springs forward to holy- 
duties, quite glad to be allowed to do or 
to suffer for his sake. Thus the strength, 
which the Holy Spirit applies, is that of 
Christ, the crucified, risen, glorified Re- 
deemer : it is exercised with infinite wis- 
dom, tenderness, and love, agreeably to the 
sympathy of Christ, the Head, with his 
suffering members on earth ; it is increased 
at seasons of peculiar need, so that " out of 
weakness we are made strong ; " 1 " As is thy 
day, so shall thy strength be." 2 

And thus the strength first given, is con- 
tinually renewed. The apostle says, "lean 
do all things through Christ who strength- 
ened me:" not merely, who strengthened 
me once, at first conversion ; who has 
strengthened me in many former trials ; 
but who strengthened me from day to day, 
and from hour to hour. So, brethren, with 
yourselves. Christ does not give, at first 
conversion, a store of grace for after use, 
but he keeps an infinite supply in his own 

l Heb. xi. 34. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 25. 



152 THE SOUL 

hand, and imparts to you here a little and 
there a little, rather, here a sufficiency and 
there a sufficiency, according to your need. 
This is a goodly method. Our grace for 
daily use is far better in his keeping than 
in ours. Beside which, what a sweetness it 
gives in every duty, to realize his very 
present help and strength ; what a refresh- 
ment in trouble, to find that he has not 
left nor forsaken us ; what a kind memorial 
have we that his arm is not shortened that 
it cannot save, nor his heart hardened that 
he cannot feel, when we find him sending 
grace, so suitable and sufficient, at the very 
season of our need ! 

Brethren, what an inward witness for 
Christ has every strengthened and com- 
forted believer ! Infidels doubt whether 
Jesus rose from the dead ; Socinians dispute 
against his deity : the true believer knows 
and is sure, that Christ, who died for sinners, 
is risen, ascended, and reigning gloriously ; 
he is certain that Jesus is both God and 
man, by the more than human might, 
applied with such gracious sympathy to his 



DEVOTED. 153 

own soul in weakness and affliction. Such 
strength cannot come from man, for man, 
untaught of God, does not even comprehend 
it ; it cannot come from himself, for he has 
had proof enough that in himself he has no 
might ; it cannot come from the evil spirit, 
for it promotes holiness, and glorifies God, 
— effects which Satan hates to see : it does 
come from Christ ; for whence it came, 
thither it tends ; it testifies of Christ, it 
leads to Christ, it enables for every service 
to which Christ calls. 

3. Thus Christ strengthens by the motive 
of his cross, and the grace of his Spirit. 
I mention but one method more. He also 
strengthens by the glorious hope set before 
the devoted Christian. The cross makes 
him set out, the crown before him attracts 
his eye, and animates him to persevere. In 
worldly pursuits, we all know the force of 
hope, and the withering effect of despair. 
But the true believer is a stranger to despair. 
He cannot find that word spoken to him 
in his Bible, except in a negative connexion. 1 

1 2 Cor. iv. 8. " Perplexed, but not in despair." 



154 THE SOUL 

On the contrary, the more simple his faith 
in Christ, and the more devoted his spirit, 
the more does his hope of glory increase, 
improve, and become confirmed. He knows 
full well that he is to receive that glory, 
not through his own poor works, but for 
the Saviour's sake, — the purchase of his 
dying sorrows, the gift of his free grace ; 
yet he also knows, that the more he loves 
Christ, becomes sanctified in heart, is trans- 
formed into the image of Christ, and labours 
and suffers for his sake ; the greater will be 
his meetness for heaven, the brighter will 
be his crown, the richer his reward of grace. 
In this hope there is a mighty force to give 
a continually increasing strength to the 
believer's soul. For every year brings glory 
nearer ; every trial endured, leaves one trial 
less to come ; every victory gained, pre- 
pares for another; every spiritual blessing 
received, is an earnest of better things in 
reserve. Hence, as bodies move faster the 
nearer they are to their centre of attraction, 
as the racer quickens his pace the nearer he 
approaches the goal, so with the believer, 



DEVOTED. 155 

the nearer to Christ and glory, the more 
does his faith grow, and his devotedness 
increase. 

But we must conclude. What says the 
unconverted man to this subject ? I suppose 
he will soberly pronounce it all enthusiasm. 
I would thank him to write down, seriously 
and honestly, his own idea of the meaning 
of our text, and of what manner of person 
a Christian ought to be. Let him compare 
his account with the Scriptures, and let 
conscience judge between us. He would 
say, " The matter has been over-stated :" — 
my serious impression, after studying the 
subject, is, that it has been under-stated. 
Does he still think that I have carried 
things too far ? do you mean, I would ask, 
farther than the Bible carries them ? If 
you do not mean that, then what is your 
standard ? Perhaps he would add, " But it is 
impracticable." I answer, " I grant that it 
is, except through Christ, that strength- 
ened. Now have you sought grace and 
strength from him ? Will you go and seek 
it now ? Will you daily ask of him strength 
to repent, believe, obey ? " 



156 



THE SOUL 



Sinner, does thy heart refuse ? Is this 
its language, " I love my sins : I hate God : 
I will not have Christ to reign over me, his 
ministers shall not persuade me ?" Must I 
then tell thee of the terrors of the Lord ? 
What I have been tracing in these dis- 
courses is the history of a saved soul : who 
could endure, what ear would not tingle, to 
hear the history of a lost soul ? Yet, sinner, 
unless thou repentest, and believest the 
gospel, thou wilt have to hear sermons 
eloquent with the sighs of anguish, and 
pathetic with the groanings of remorse, 
throughout eternity. Poor, wretched soul ! 
I would fain see thee the saved soul. If 
entreaties could move, I would beg and pray 
of thee not to despise so great salvation. 
With Christ, thou mayest yet do all things ; 
without him thou canst do nothing but go 
on adding sin to sin, till ripe for destruction. 
Sinner, our next lecture will bring us to the 
last, the closing scene for the soul as to 
this world. Try even yet to overtake our 
course. Thou wilt not be ready for that 
topic, unless thou understandest this and 
the foregoing subjects. Begin, then, for 



DEVOTED. 157 

Christ's sake, and thy soul's sake, talk not 
of moral inability to what is good as an 
excuse, but use it as an argument for going 
instantly to Christ for the grace which can 
enable. 

Let this subject speak encouragement 
to the young and timid Christian. You 
have already felt weakness and insufficiency ; 
you have tried this duty and that, but have 
sadly failed ; behold now how you may be 
able to do all things. It is true, you will 
still have to mourn over short-comings 
and imperfections. The reason is, because 
faith is often so weak, prayer so cold, and 
our own corruptions so mix themselves 
with all we do. Hence, you are to be 
ever humble, ever depending solely on the 
merits of Christ, ever desiring more grace. 
Go then, young Christians, and try your 
hand at holy duties. It is quite true that 
you are very weak ; it is equally true that 
Christ is very strong, and that his strength 
is made perfect in weakness. 1 Have ye not 
read, and is it not a sweet and gracious 

1 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
P 



158 THE SOUL 

assurance, " He giveth power to the faint ; 
and to them that have no might he in- 
creaseth strength. Even the youths shall 
faint and be weary, and the young men 
shall utterly fall ; but they that wait upon 
the Lord shall renew their strength ; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they 
shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall 
walk, and not faint." 1 

Lastly, I shall be truly thankful, should 
this subject stir up any devoted soul to 
greater diligence in serving our gracious Lord. 
There is in such topics, however feebly 
treated, much to make us hang down our 
heads with shame and humiliation. So much 
time lost ! such gracious opportunities gone 
by ! such privileges so slightly improved ! 
Oh, how little have we done, compared with 
what we could have done, and ought to 
have done for Christ ! Then, think of your 
unconverted days, worse than lost ! Re- 
member, when the soul was devoted, in a 
bad sense, wholly given to vanities, follies, 
vile affections! And yet, for all that sin- 

l Isaiah xl. 29—31. 



DEVOTED. 159 

fulness Christ gives you a full pardon : — I 
speak to true believers : — he answers,, he 
undertakes for you. You are " justified 
freely by God's grace, through the redemp- 
tion that is in Christ Jesus." l 

And now, will ye not speed to serve, 
praise, and glorify him all you can ? And 
what is there which you cannot do, through 
him that strengthened you ? I speak not 
of things miraculous in nature. I bid you 
not go and miraculously heal the sick, 
cleanse the leper, raise the dead, remove 
mountains, or walk upon the sea. I do bid 
you, in Christ's name, to do things as con- 
trary to flesh and blood. Be instruments, 
in his hand, to heal those who are sick in 
heart, leprous with moral pollution, dead in 
sins. Go, and serve Christ in levelling the 
mountains of difficulty, which oppose the 
progress of his gospel. Go and walk, his 
hand sustaining, over the waves of this trou- 
blesome world. 

Christians, I call you, in Christ's name, 
and I am sure that, through his grace, you 

1 Rom. iii, 24. 



160 



THE SOUL DEVOTED. 



will obey the calling, to go and do all holy 
duties to which he invites. Go, and exer- 
cise Christian graces amid trials. Go, and 
be humble, pure, gentle, peaceable. Go, 
and labour for Christ, as opportunity is given. 
Do what you know you can do, through 
Christ that strengtheneth you. Rise at his 
bidding, superior to sloth, selfishness, and the 
fear of man. Cheerfully consent to be often 
wearied in his service, but never wearied of 
it ! Gladly spend and be spent for him who 
died for you ! There is much to be done 
for Christ in this wretched world :— to 
whom, but to you, should he look to do it ? 
Oh, do what you can, and do it while you 
can ! "Brethren, the time is short /" * 

l 1 Cor. vii. 29. 



SERMON VI. 



THE SOUL DEPARTING. 



ACTS VII. 59, 60. 

And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, 
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, 
and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to 
their charge. And when he had said this, he fell 
asleep. 

Such was the happy death of Stephen, 
the first martyr of the Christian church. 
It may, at first sight, appear strange, to look, 
in the narrative of his death, for instruction 
how, and in what spirit, a Christian ought 
to die. His case, it may be thought, was 
so singular, and the circumstances of his 
death so extraordinary, that here can be no 
pattern for ourselves. But, on examina- 

p3 



162 THE SOUL 

tion, I think it will be found, that, after 
allowing largely for all that was extraordi- 
nary, there will remain certain grand cha- 
racteristics, in which the death of Stephen 
illustrates the state of mind in which every 
faithful disciple of Jesus Christ should pre- 
pare to die. It is also possible, that, as to 
see a Christian die is more striking than to 
hear of it from others, so, a scriptural ex- 
ample, like this, may bring the grand fea- 
tures of a truly Christian death more vividly 
before us, than any text could do, which 
speaks of death under circumstances less 
present to the eye 

It is, however, remarkable, how very few 
examples of the deaths of the faithful are 
given us in the New Testament. We have 
this of Stephen ; another, of the penitent 
thief; we have few, if any, beside. We 
read that Lazarus was sick and died ; we 
have no particulars of his death. We read 
of the deaths of John the Baptist and James, 
but nothing of what they said or did when 
dying. There is no scriptural account of 
the deaths of Paul, or Peter, or John. We 



DEPARTING. 163 

are told how they lived, how they thought 
and spake of death ; but the last scene of 
their lives is not described to us by any 
inspired pen. This circumstance renders 
the account of Stephen's death the more 
valuable. At the same time, it seems to say, 
that, after all, the important thing is to live 
the Christian's life, to be truly found abid- 
ing in Christ, to learn in spirit to die daily ; 
and then, it matters comparatively little 
whether, in our last moments, we have the 
leisure, the faculties, and the opportunity 
for glorifying God, with which some are 
favoured. Whatever be the circumstantials, 
to the true believer, u to live is Christ, and 
to die is gain." * 

Hence, brethren, I come to you, not now 
on your death-beds, but here, in health and 
strength, to bid you prepare to die the 
Christian's death, by living his life, and being 
found in that frame of mind in which a 
Christian would wish to die. Then, when 
death actually approaches, you will have no 
new lesson to learn ; you will have but to 

1 Phil. i. 21. 



164 THE SOUL 

trim your replenished lamps, and go forth 
to meet the bridegroom. 

This subject, you are aware, is to con- 
clude this little Series of Lectures. When 
you have long had familiar acquaintance 
with our former topics, you will yet have to 
die. Even if you neglect all those things, 
you cannot escape death. " It is appointed 
unto men once to die." ! Therefore, it is 
better now to face the subject, which, 
though of gloomy and forbidding aspect, the 
grace of God can yet make truly pleasant. 
Jesus Christ, " who hath abolished death, 
and hath brought life and immortality to 
light/' 2 can enable us to meditate, with 
cheerful interest, on our present topic, the 
soul departing home to God. 

The characteristics of a truly Christian 
death as seen in the case of Stephen ; — 
this, brethren, is our subject. 

Observe, First, his faithful confession of 
the Saviour before men. This you find in 
the speech given in the former part of this 
chapter ; the object of which is sometimes 

1 Heb. ix. 27. 2 2 Tim. i. 10. 



DEPARTING. 1 65 

overlooked. Its design was, 1. To move 
the conscience of his hearers with a sense 
of sin ; and, 2. To answer the charges which 
had been maliciously brought against him. 
Withal he confesses Jesus Christ and him 
crucified, as the prophet promised by God 
through Moses, 1 and as the Just One fore- 
shown by the prophets, betrayed and slain 
by the Jews. 2 Now, this is what every 
Christian should be desirous to do before 
he dies. Stephen, we see, confessed Christ 
before the high priest and the council, 
although he must have known that the con- 
fession might cost him his life. And he, 
my brethren, was but one of the noble 
army of martyrs who have died most ago- 
nizing deaths, rather than deny the Lord 
who bought them. Surely they who live 
in milder times, and who, when death 
approaches, find themselves surrounded by 
professed Christians and kind friends, should 
not be ashamed to give their faithful testi- 
mony to Jesus Christ. The Saviour claims, 
and his church expects, that, if you do look 

1 Acts vii. 37. 2 Acts vii. 52. 



166 THE SOUL 

to him for salvation, as a gift procured for 
you by his dying sorrows, you should hum- 
bly and ingenuously confess your obligation. 
Are you afraid of hypocrisy ? The fear 
may be good : but it is no hypocrisy to con- 
fess with the tongue the genuine feelings of 
the heart. 

Confess, then, Jesus Christ before men, 
while you can ; do it faithfully from time to 
time ; do it very distinctly when you feel 
that you cannot have long to continue here. 
Imitate Jacob, Moses, David, and Simeon, 
who, toward the close of life, all gave very 
plain testimonies of their hope in Christ. 
Confess, with Paul "the aged," that you 
know in whom you have trusted, and are 
persuaded of his faithfulness : l testify with 
Peter, when about to put off this your 
tabernacle, that you have not followed cun- 
ningly devised fables : 2 unite with John, 
who, in extreme old age, bore faithful wit- 
ness to the divinity, the grace, and the aton- 
ing love of Christ. 3 And who can tell but 
it may please God to bless your testimony to 

l 2 Tim. i. 12. 2 2 Peter i. 14—16. 3 See his Epistles. 



DEPARTING. 167 

those who survive ? Among those about 
you when death is drawing near, there may 
be some, Christians in name, infidels in 
heart ; others, too careless and flippant ever 
to have given to religion a serious thought ; 
there may be self-righteous persons present, 
quite ignorant that they can only be saved 
by the righteousness of Christ ; there may be 
unsound professors, holding the truth in un- 
righteousness ; there may be many younger 
Christians, needing to be encouraged ; many 
also of your own or longer standing, to 
whom it may afterwards prove no small 
comfort, to know that you had found grace 
to be faithful, and had not died without 
hope toward God, Who, I say, can tell 
but your testimony, given at such a time, 
with a close appeal, like Stephen's, to con- 
science and to Scripture, may be greatly 
blessed? Do not some of you remember, 
with peculiar interest, similar instructions 
given to yourselves ? Who can forget the 
last exhortations of a departed father, mo- 
ther, brother, husband, wife, child, friend ? 
At all events, you will do your duty : — and 



168 



THE SOUL 



that is your part. If they heed not, the 
responsibility is theirs. If they regard, what 
cause for thankfulness to God ! 

May I not, then, affectionately leave this 
duty on your memory and conscience, that 
as a slight return for Christ's love in wit- 
nessing a good confession for you before 
Pontius Pilate, you will faithfully confess 
him before men ? that you will do it now ; 
renew it faithfully from time to time ; per- 
severe in a consistent profession of his 
gospel ; and at length, when the time that 
you must die visibly approaches, then, 
gather up your strength, or, rather, seek 
strength of God, once again to declare 
faithfully your simple testimony to Jesus 
Christ, as the true Messiah, the only, but 
all-sufficient Saviour, your hope and confi- 
dence in going before God ! 

The fifty-fifth verse will furnish us with a 
Second characteristic of a faithful Christian, 
at the approach of death. " But he being 
full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stead- 
fastly into heaven, and saw the glory of 
God, and Jesus standing on the right hand 



DEPARTING. 169 

of God." There was doubtless something 
extraordinary in this. We before heard of 
Stephen as " a man full of faith and of the 
Holy Ghost;" 1 and again, as " full of faith 
and power, doing great wonders and mira- 
cles among the people." 2 Hence, it is pro- 
bable, that now also, before death, he 
had the Holy Spirit in a more extraor- 
dinary measure and manner, than is the 
lot of Christians in general. So also, the 
view which he had of the glory of God, 
and of Jesus standing at his right hand, 
was probably more sensible, immediate, and 
august, ^han what we are to expect. But, 
separate what was extraordinary, and there 
will remain what is the privilege of every 
faithful Christian at such a time. 

If true believers, ye are not ignorant 
even now of the power and grace of the 
Holy Ghost. It is he who made your soul 
sensible of danger : he touched you with 
godly sorrow ; he led you to believe in 
Jesus Christ ; he has strengthened you 
for much conflict ; his might and influence 

1 Acts vi. 5. 2 Acts vi. 8. 



170 THE SOUL 

make you the devoted Christian. Thus 
you know him now. When you come to 
die, ask, and you shall still have that holy 
Comforter with you in that hour of trial. 
It is not his custom to desert humble souls 
in that emergency. Frequently they are 
then permitted to have a fuller measure of 
his grace ; that being often the season of 
their deepest need. He will bring you 
sweet promises from the divine word, he 
will humble anew for sin, he will again take 
of the things of Jesus and show them unto 
you, and so he will comfort with solid com- 
fort. He will specially give you larger and 
nobler views of the glory of God, as it shines 
forth in the covenant of grace. We, I 
believe, have but a feeble idea of the grand 
and sublime conception of the glory of God 
in Christ Jesus, often given by the Holy 
Spirit, as a soul-reviving cordial to the 
dying Christian. Then, the faithful disciple 
often sees more clearly than ever the glory 
of the moral attributes of God; the divine 
justice, holiness, mercy, truth, and love, 
beautifully combined in the plan of that 



DEPARTING. 171 

redemption, of which, the same good Spirit 
witnesses to his spirit, that he is through 
grace a true partaker. Brethren, in a dying 
hour, human glory appears a falling star, an 
ignis fatuus, a bubble ready to burst : the 
Divine glory appears, what it is, a grand 
reality * 

In connexion with the glory of God, 
Stephen saw Jesus standing on the right 
hand of God ; and so may you with the eye 
of faith. The Word of God declares that 
he is there ; your faith, if you have faith, 
readily believes it. You then no more doubt 
that Jesus is personally at the right hand of 
God at this moment, than you doubt that 
you are here. That thought will also often 
comfort you in trial, and animate you in 
conflict. And especially in your last trial, 
and when called to conflict with the " king 
of terrors," * this your view of Jesus may be 
peculiarly lively and impressive. By faith 
you may see him there at the right hand of 
God, the place^ of power, dignity, and joint 
sovereignty with the Father, standing as an 
advocate to plead, as a friend to beckon 

) Job xviii. 14. 



172 THE SOUL 

you, Come up hither! as the Lord of 
heaven, ready to welcome your departing 
spirit entering into his kingdom. 

Brethren, nothing can so comfort and 
cheer in a dying hour as a believing view 
of Jesus in his mediatorial exercise of power 
and love. Other friends cannot help then. 
Though a father were standing at your bed- 
side, he can do little for you then. The 
kindest of mothers can but wipe your fore- 
head, smooth your pillow, grasp your hand, 
and moisten it with a tear. Worldly friends 
will prove miserable comforters then. But 
Jesus, if by faith you can but see him stand- 
ing to befriend you, will chase away all your 
fears, uphold your sinking spirit, and revive 
your fainting soul with the manifestation of 
his grace. 

We come to a Third characteristic of a 
faithful death. We find it in verse 59 : — 
" And they stoned Stephen, calling upon 
God, and saying. Lord Jesus, receive my 
spirit" Here is a prayer to Jesus Christ to 
receive the departing soul : and this, without 
making any deduction for what was extraor- 
dinary in the case before us, I at once put 



DEPARTING. 173 

down among the characteristics of every 
faithful death. 

He called upon God. The word " God" 
is not in the original ; but it is clearly implied. 
To whom but God is prayer permitted ? 
Who but God can take charge of the soul of 
man ? They who deny the Divinity of Jesus 
Christ are much perplexed with this prayer 
of Stephen addressed to him. The explana- 
tion, which some of them have given, is, to 
my mind, such an awful attempt to explain 
away Divine truth, that I will not state it : — 
it is so impious. But I leave them. Breth- 
ren, I think you will feel in a dying hour, 
that your departing soul needs a Divine 
Saviour. You have one in Jesus Christ. 
You may call upon him then, even as now. 
His ear will not be heavy, though yours 
may, when death is sealing up your faculties. 
His eye will not have lost its power of gazing 
affectionately on you, when yours is becom- 
ing dim and closed. His hand will not be 
shortened, in the hour when yours will have 
become tremulous and feeble. But lift up 
the hand, the heart, the eye, the soul, in 

Q 3 



174 THE SOUL 

prayer to him then, and you will find him a 
very near and present help in that your time 
of trouble. 

Brethren, a Christian should die praying. 
Other men die in different ways, according 
to their character and temper. Julius Caesar 
died adjusting his robes, that he might fall 
gracefully. Augustus died in a compliment 
to Livia his wife ;* Tiberius in dissimulation ; 2 
Vespasian in a jest. 3 The infidel Hume 
died, with pitiful jokes about Charon and 
his boat ; Rousseau, with language of pre- 
sumptuous boasting; Voltaire, with min- 
gled imprecations and supplications ; Paine, 
with shrieks of agonizing remorse. Multi- 
tudes die with sullenness, some with blas- 
phemies faltering on their tongue. But, 
brethren, the humble Christian would die 
praying. Well says the poet : — 

" Prayer is the Christian's vital breath. 
The Christian's native air ; 
His watch-word at the gates of death, 
He enters heaven with prayer !" 4 

1 " Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale." 

2 "Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio desere- 
bant." Tac. 

3 " Utputo, Dens no." See Lord Bacon's Essay on Death. 

4 Montgomery. 



DEPARTING. 175 

But it is not a prayer to an unknown God, 
or the God of a Deist, which will serve 
then. It should be to God the Father, and 
to Jesus the Son of God, the only Saviour 
and Mediator. 

But, observe for what Stephen prayed. 
"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" This is 
the prayer of faith, commending the immor- 
tal spirit to the covenant care of Jesus. The 
spirit does not die with the body. None 
but God, who gave, can take away the soul's 
existence, and he has declared that he never 
will. Would that bad men would think on 
that ! You cannot get rid of your souPs 
existence : you cannot cease to be : you may 
wish it ; though the wish is monstrous and 
unnatural But there is no annihilation for 
any soul of man. Oh, come to our Saviour ! 
give him your guilty soul, to be justified 
through his atonement, washed in his blood, 
regenerated by his Spirit. Make to him 
now that surrender of your soul, for which 
he calls. Renew this happy self-dedication 
every day, very specially every Sabbath, 
and most solemnly from time to time at the 



176 THE SOUL 

Lord's Supper. And then, when you come 
to die, it will only be, to do once more what 
you have so often done in former days, — 
again to commend your soul very humbly, 
believingly, and affectionately, into the faith- 
ful care of Jesus Christ. 

Believers, behold here the secret of dying ! 
" These all died in faith." 1 Bad men die 
reluctantly : life is extorted from them as if 
by main force. The believer dies willingly ; 
his will is sweetly submitted to his Fathers 
will : he makes it a religious act to die. 
Just as Jesus himself commended his human 
soul to his Father, saying, " Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit ;" 2 so his believ- 
ing disciple commends his soul to Jesus, and 
through him to the Father. Here, I repeat, 
is the secret how to die happily. To those 
who know not that secret, it is a fearful 
thing to die. It is a serious matter for any. 
But to the worldly-minded and ungodly, if 
not past feeling, to die must be as one of the 
heathen philosophers confessed it, " of all 
formidable things the most formidable." 3 

1 Heb. xi. 13. 2 Laike xxiii. 46. 3 Aristotle. 



DEPARTING. 177 

Only mention a neighbour's death in a gay- 
circle : — lo ! you have thrown a gloom over 
the whole assembly ; all are evidently sorry 
that the topic was introduced. The ancient 
Romans would not mention death in plain 
words, if they could avoid it, but only by 
circumlocution and implication. The hea- 
thens, at this day, in like manner, " shun all 
conversation on death, as most repugnant to 
their feelings;" — I quote the words of an 
eye-witness, 1 — "and account it the height 
of cruelty to speak of the probability of a 
sick friend's death, even to his relatives." 
Even serious Christians are often in bond- 
age through fear of death. It is such a 
venture ; a mistake may be so fatal ; to 
go before God is so awful ; judgment will 
bring to light such secrets ; that many think, 
How can I die? Yet you all must. Be 

1 Mr. E. Baker, of the London Missionary Society, in Mada- 
gascar. He gives this affecting testimony. "The stoutest- 
hearted men will, as I have had occasion to observe in Ma- 
dagascar, when stretched on a death-bed, exclaim, with all the 
feebleness of children and anguish of despair, "I die! I die! 
O mother! O father! I die!" while the big tears will trickle 
down their olive cheeks in abundance." 



.178 THE SOUL 

persuaded, give your soul to Jesus now ; do 
it again from day to day ; and then, when 
your dying day is come, again approach the 
Saviour, and say, " Lord, I hear thee calling 
for my spirit ; I see the wagons sent to 
fetch me home to thee ; in the hand of death 
I recognize thy hand of love : thou askest 
for my soul, take it, for it is thine. Do with 
it what thou wilt, I have given it to thee to 
be washed in thy blood, and sanctified by 
thy Spirit ; I am sure thou wilt do it no 
harm ! " 

Does a thought here arise, And what shall 
become of my poor body ? Why, even if, 
like Stephen's, it were battered and bruised 
with stones murderously hurled, even though 
it were burning at a stake, or tortured on a 
rack, you need not mind; look but that the 
soul be safe ; and then, whatever may be- 
come of the body, Jesus will take care of 
thy dust and ashes. The remains of his 
faithful servants are to him the most precious 
parts of this material earth. They form a 
pledge of his final coming. For if your 
souls are truly his, he will hereafter raise up 



DEPARTING. 179 

your bodies glorious, incorruptible, immor- 
tal, like unto his own. l 

Thus, soul and body shall be safe for 
eternity. Brethren, will you not remember 
this when you come to die ? I may not be 
near you ; if I were, I could but tell you of 
these things, and pray with you. But my 
own dying hour will have come before that 
of some of you. But, do remember, for the 
love of Christ, that it is your duty, your 
privilege, and safety, then again to commit 
your soul into his hands. Oh, trust to no 
false hope ; call not on saint or angel ; lean 
on no broken reed in that hour of trial. 
But lean on Jesus, stay the heart on his faith- 
ful promise : do it heartily, humbly, as poor 
miserable sinners, as unprofitable servants, 
even at the best ; plead again his righteous 
obedience unto death for sinners, fix the eye 
of faith on his cross, make that your only 
glorying. And then, I dare promise, he will 
receive your soul. He will carry it peace- 
fully, if not joyfully, through the dark valley. 
He will comfort by the way. And presently, 

1 Phil. iii. 21. 



180 THE SOUL 

like the shepherd carrying home his once 
lost sheep, and calling his neighbours around 
him to rejoice, he will introduce your happy 
soul into the midst of the gratulations of 
angels, and the thanksgivings of the re- 
deemed, for the grace which brought you 
into fellowship with them in the presence of 
the Father. 

There is, however, yet another, even a 
Fourth characteristic of a faithful death, as 
seen in the case of Stephen, at verse 60 : 
"And he kneeled down, and cried with a 
loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge" There you see the charity toward 
man, with which a Christian dies. Here 
again Stephen followed his Lord. When 
Jesus was dying on the cross, he prayed ; — 
and the prayer ought to have softened the 
hearts of his murderers : — " Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." 
Now, if Jesus could forgive and pray for 
those who crucified him ; if Stephen could 
find it in his heart to pray for those who 
were crushing him with stones, and con- 

1 Luke xxiii. 34. 



DEPARTING. 181 

senting to his death ; if God, for Christ's 
sake, forgives his bitter enemies, and by his 
grace converted some of the murderers of 
Jesus into faithful disciples ; l then, surely 
it is your duty, before you die, to forgive 
your enemies, if you have any, however 
they may have offended or injured you. 
Would you do it aright then 9 Try, and 
do it now. To die is altogether so great 
a thing, that we should not then be learn- 
ing things which we ought to have learned 
years before. 

O that I might persuade you, if at vari- 
ance with any, as some of you very probably 
are, to forgive them freely, to go and pray 
for them, to return good for evil, to put 
away from you " all bitterness, and wrath, 
and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, 
with all malice ; and be ye kind one to 
another, tender-hearted, forgiving one ano- 
ther, even as God for Christ's sake hath 
forgiven you." 2 May I hope that you will 
obey this exhortation ? My soul sighs within 
me to think of the unforgiving tempers of 

1 Compare Actsii. 23, with verse 41, &c. 2 Ephes. iv. 31, 32. 
R 



182 THE SOUL 

some professing Christians. Yet there is no 
duty which Christ more earnestly pressed 
on his disciples than this of mutual forgive- 
ness. He wonderfully wrapped it up in our 
daily prayer for pardon; so that if unfor- 
giving, we must be unforgiven, and our very 
prayers will be witnesses against us, and 
even invoke curses on our heads ! May we 
all think of this as often as we say, " Forgive 
us our trespasses, as we forgive them that 
trespass against us !" 

My friends, we are told that when an 
eminent American divine * once preached on 
this duty of forgiving injuries, after the ser- 
vice, two families, which had been for years 
at variance, remained behind, as if unable 
to leave the place till they had sought a 
mutual reconciliation. Would that every 
one of you might feel a similar constraint, 
and drop, from this moment, every feeling 
of animosity toward every one who may in 
any way have offended you ! You will lose 
nothing by following this advice. What- 
ever be the sweetness of revenge, forgive- 

1 Jonathan Edwards. 



DEPARTING. 183 

ness is a sweeter and a purer feeling. Your 
bosom will be more calm and peaceful, 
when it has lost that resentful temper. Your 
new spirit of kindness may also soften whom 
enmity did but exasperate. And above all, 
you will obey and imitate Christ, and have 
begun to prepare aright for a dying hour. 

Surely none of you would wish to die in 

malice. You would not carry the petty 

quarrels of this life into the other world. 

You hardly can be hoping to retain enmity 

in heaven. There is no such thing there ! 

Oh, cherish now those principles which you 

may hope to retain there. That is a golden 

rule for holy living, as well as a preparative 

for faithful dying. Cultivate the principles, 

which will not die when you die. Get seeds 

sown in your hearts now, which may not 

wither when your body withers, but may 

expand and bloom in the paradise of God. 

Forgiving charity is one, being a part of the 

love which never faileth. Ask God to sow, 

to water, and to nourish it in your hearts. 

It is no common plant in this unforgiving 

world. Look at the world's men of honour ; 



184 THE SOUL 

— offend them, and they will kill you, if 
you are weak and wicked enough to let 
them. What a thought, that numbers, high 
in station, and of polished manners, and 
calling themselves Christians, live with a 
settled determination to break the sixth 
commandment, whenever an imputation 
shall be cast on their honour ! Then, look 
into worldly families, and mark the ran- 
corous divisions. Enter into the history of 
churches, and see, with sorrow, how in- 
fidels have found cause to laugh, where 
angels might find cause to weep, in the 
bitter animosities of the followers of the 
Lamb. Nay, look into your own hearts, 
and see if there have not been there also the 
seeds of " envy, hatred, and malice, and all 
uncharitableness." For Christ's sake, try 
and root them out. If others injure you, 
never injure yourself again by harbouring 
malice toward them. As you would live 
peaceably, and die joyfully, see that you 
freely forgive, even as you hope to be for- 
given. 

Thus, brethren, you have heard, from 



DEPARTING. 185 

Stephen's example, of Four characteristics 
of the Christian's soul when departing home 
to God. The First was in the faithful con- 
fession of Christ before men : the Second, in 
a believing view of the Divine glory, and of 
Jesus at the right hand of God; and this 
through the power and grace of the Holy 
Spirit : the Third, in a spirit of prayer, with 
a faithful committal of the soul to Jesus 
Christ : and the Fourth, in a lively exercise 
of forgiving charity toward men. 

And what, you may ask, comes after this ? 
You will then have nothing to do but to 
die ! Mark how pleasantly this is told us 
in Stephen's case, verse 60 : " And when he 
had said this, he fell asleep" What a peace- 
ful expression! What weary man dreads 
sleep ? Yet to a true believer this is death, 
to fall asleep in Jesus ! Not that the soul 
sleeps : — that is but a dreamy thought. To 
be "absent from the body," is to be "present 
with the Lord." l But the body itself, when 
the soul is fled, is very much as in a sleep, 
waiting for the morning of the resurrection: 

1 2 Cor. v. 8. 
r3 



186 THE SOUL 

it is so insensible to sorrow and alarm ; it 
lies so still and motionless ; it looks so calm ! 
The soul also reposes, but not in torpid in- 
sensibility ; it rests, if it belonged to Jesus, 
from cares, troubles, conflicts ; it is carried 
through brighter regions than fancy ever 
wafted us in dreams and visions of the 
night ; it mingles with congenial spirits, it 
hears melodious voices, it sees what eye 
hath not seen ; it enjoys pleasures so pure, 
so exquisite, so full of blessedness and God, 
as to exceed our comprehension. And yet 
this is all no dream, no idle talk, none of 
fancy's fictions. All is real, solid, perma- 
nent. Whatever be wanting, the resurrec- 
tion will supply. Then, the sleep which 
enchained the body will be burst ; the en- 
chanter's spell will be broken ; the body 
will awake up, after the Saviour's image ; 
and the soul and body will re-unite to part 
no more, but to walk together, in holy com- 
panionship, through the ages of eternity. 

But at this point we must stop. It falls 
not within the plan of this course of Ser- 
mons, to attempt to describe the bliss of 



DEPARTING. 187 

the redeemed in glory. My anxiety for 
you is, that, through the grace of Christ, 
you may but safely reach that happy land, 
and then I have no fear but you will find its 
blessedness beyond all that tongue could 
tell, or heart conceive here on earth. Hav- 
ing traced the departing soul home to God, 
there I can cheerfully leave it, safe for eter- 
nity. But remember, that soul is the very 
same which we so lately saw to be the soul 
in danger. The same soul has been spoken 
of throughout, but now, oh, how changed ! 
Shall yours be that happy soul? Yours 
was the soul in danger. Shall it also be 
the soul in glory ? What a question ! May 
God rightly impress it on every conscience ! 
Allow me a parting word of application 
with every soul. 

I once again appeal to the unconverted 
sinner, whom I have so often addressed in 
these discourses. I have had his case much 
upon my heart, God is witness. And now, 
sinner, I am to speak a last word to thee, 
so far as concerns the opportunity afforded 
by this course of Sermons. I do it with 



1 88 THE SOUL 

affection for thy soul, yet, if thou art hitherto 
unmoved, I do it also with much of sorrow 
and concern. My fellow-sinner, you and I 
have to die ! I have told you how the Chris- 
tian hopes to die. Now, I would ask, How 
do you mean to die ? Is it, as you are liv- 
ing, careless, foolish, impenitent, scoffing I 
Would you die in a stupor of insensibility ? 
or blaspheming ? or in a state of intoxica- 
tion ? or " as a fool dieth ? " l Would you 
die what you are, an impenitent, unpar- 
doned, unregenerate sinner ? Now, do not 
tell me that you mean to die like a true 
Christian, if you will not begin to live like 
one. It will be a terrible thing to have to 
learn repentance, faith, conflict, devoted- 
ness, regeneration, sanctiflcation, all within 
the space of a few short hours, amid weak- 
ness, faintness, pain, agony, and, it may be, 
delirium and stupor. 

I will not say that there never is such a 
thing as a death-bed repentance or conver- 
sion, which may issue in salvation. But I 
believe that it is no common thing, espe- 

1 2 Sam. iii. 33. 



DEPARTING. 189 

cially in cases where men have been secretly 
putting the whole matter off to that hour. 
For God knows that secret intention, and it 
grievously insults his mercy. It presents 
his creature, saying, " I know very well that 
I ought to repent, but I will not do it yet. 
I will take my fill of sin. I will give to 
God the last dregs of life." Now, what 
must God think of that language? Yet 
thus your heart speaks, when you put off 
repentance to your death-bed. Oh, it is 
with a heavy heart that ministers visit the 
death-beds of the ungodly ; they are so 
afraid of deceiving or giving false comfort ; 
their only satisfaction is to do what they 
can, to warn, exhort, invite the dying sin- 
ner to come, ere too late, to Christ; then 
to pray with him and for him : and then, to 
leave the issue with the all-wise God ! 

But, sinner, am I to leave thee as I found 
thee, with the soul in danger ? There are 
some here, who are on their way to glory. 
Are they and you presently to part, as by 
two opposite paths ? Oh, what shall I say 



190 THE SOUL 

to arouse thee ? what can I say more, if the 
prospect of the soul lost, heaven lost, Christ 
rejected, cannot move thee ? Has thy soul 
no feeling ? Is it incapable of hope and 
fear, of love and gratitude, of desire and 
expectation ? Oh, what a thing is sin, 
which has hardened, blinded, sensualized 
that heart, which, if given to God through 
Christ, might have been soft, tender, sen- 
sible, affectionate, and gentle! Sinner, I 
must leave thee. I suppose that I ought 
to threaten thee with hell. But thou hast 
hell begun. There is no heaven in thy 
heart. There is no foretaste of heaven's 
peace, and joy, and blessedness, in that 
wretched soul. Is there any ? I will 
add no threat: thou art miserable enough 
already : my last word with thee, in this 
course of Sermons, shall not be a threat, 
but an invitation and a prayer. Sinner, I 
invite thee for the last time. Come yet, 
come now, as a guilty sinner, to Jesus Christ. 
Tell him how nearly thou hadst rejected 
him and salvation : ask for pardon through 



DEPARTING. 191 

his name : accept the mercy which he so 
freely offers. And here is my heart's desire 
and prayer for thee, " Lord, look on that 
hitherto impenitent sinner! He has been 
invited once again to come to thee and 
be saved : and will he come ? Lord, thou 
knowest ! Persuade him, Lord, by thy own 
grace ; touch thou his conscience ; turn 
thou his heart! Oh, give him repentance 
unto life ; lay not his sin to his charge ! 
Lord, thou heardest Stephen praying for thy 
enemies. Thou didst turn one of his per- 
secutors into one of thy vessels of mercy. 
Thou madest Saul, the persecutor of Ste- 
phen and of thy church, to become Paul, 
the apostle, the martyr, the glorified saint ! 
Lord, make that hitherto impenitent sinner 
even yet a monument of thy grace ! " 

I turn to you, my believing brethren, 
who have gone with me through each stage 
of our course, and did not shrink from 
entering experimentally into what seemed 
such painful topics as repentance and con- 
flict. See whither I have been leading you 
this evening, even to the last stage of the 



192 THE SOUL 

journey of life, to the verge of glory, to the 
top of Pisgah, whence you may survey the 
heavenly Canaan. 

Let young Christians, whose benefit also 
I have much consulted in these Lectures, be 
encouraged, — not to carelessness or pre- 
sumption ; I hope I have said nothing to 
lead to that ; I did not mean it, if I have ; 
— but to a simple, affectionate reliance on 
Jesus Christ in life and in death. Be not 
ashamed of such a Saviour. Count it your 
privilege to belong to him. Give him your 
hearts, and then your lives will also be 
given to him. Shun no conflict, refuse no 
service, to which he is pleased to call. 
Allow me the hope, that you will faithfully 
follow him, when some of us are gone 
hence. Allow me the expectation of meet- 
ing you in heaven, and of there hearing, 
from each of you, a fuller and a better 
account of the history of a saved soul ! 

Elder Christians, who have known these 
things for years, whose souls, by long expe- 
rience, are intimate with all my topics, 
except that of this discourse, and whom 



DEPARTING. 193 

meditation has made familiar with that also ; 
let this little course of sermons serve, with 
God's blessing, to revive your recollections, 
renew your gratitude, quicken your dili- 
gence, and reanimate your hopes. They 
have not been meant to teach novelties, but 
to promote holy repenting, holy believing, 
holy fighting against sin, holy obeying, and 
holy dying. I beg your prayers for a bless- 
ing on this effort to do good to souls. 
Forget not to intercede for younger Chris- 
tians, and for impenitent sinners. Refuse 
me not, when I once again entreat your 
prayers for myself, that after having preached 
to others, I may not be a cast-away. And 
may God help and keep you, my dear 
brethren, and carry you through every trial, 
even to the end of your earthly pilgrimage ! 
May the divine arm strengthen you for 
dying ! May the good Shepherd be with 
each of you, in passing through the dark 
valley ! May the " very God of peace sanc- 
tify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole 
spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord 



194 THE SOUL DEPARTING. 

Jesus Christ." l And then, may we all meet 
in the happy land, to praise, through eter- 
nity, the Triune God, the Father who chose, 
the Son who redeemed, the Holy Spirit who 
led souls, once in danger, to become, for 
ever, souls in glory ! 

1 1 Thess. v. 23. 



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